The Quantum Trilogy, Book 1: Casino Royale
by Jorus C'baoth
Summary: Based on the 2006 film staring Daniel Craig. Book 1 in my series. Edited and fixed for continuity with future fanfics.
1. Double O Status Approved

_**1 / Double-0 Status Approved**_

**NOW**

Prague was rather unforgiving in the winter. One never knew if they would roll their car over by turning the wrong icy corner or they would slip while walking and fall into the river. The MI6 station in Prague was usually devoid of any ice, by way of maintenance people they hired every year. So when Section Chief Dryden stepped out of his car, he was quite angry at those very maintenance people who's paychecks he signed. The ice in the parking lot was almost horrendous.

He walked into the building and stepped into the elevator. His office was on the top floor by design, and no one but him and other Section Chiefs had a key to unlock the top floor. Of course, the CSS (Chief of the Secret Service), a woman who went solely by the letter M, also had a key. And he knew M was involved when he opened the door and saw the man who was sitting in his chair.

James Bond spun around the chair to face Dryden. "M doesn't mind you earning a little extra money on the side, Dryden. She'd just prefer it if it weren't selling secrets."

Dryden took off his coat and placed it on the rack next to the door. He saw that Bond was still wearing his. No doubt carrying his weapon underneath. Dryden just gave out a light laugh. "If the theatrics are supposed to scare me," he walked over to his five-foot tall file box, "you've got the wrong man, Bond."

"I'm not so sure of that." Dryden noticed that Bond had placed a gun on the desk. It was Dryden's personal side arm.

"If M was so sure I was bent, she'd have sent a Double-0. Benefits of being Section Chief, I'd have knowledge of anyone who'd been promoted to Double-0 status. Your file shows no kills, and it takes—" He was cut off before finishing.

"Two," Bond finished for him.

**THEN**

Bond kneed Ernst Fisher in the face. He landed in the bathroom stall and nearly crushed the toilet. He got back up, however, and punched Bond in the face, then took the damaged toilet seat and slammed it into Bond's stomach.

**NOW**

Dryden quickly grabbed the gun from on top of the desk and pointed it at Bond's head. "Shame," he said, "we barely got to know each other." He squeezed the trigger, but nothing came out. He hit the magazine release and saw the bullets had been removed.

"I know where you keep your gun. I suppose that's something."

Dryden dropped the gun. "True." He took a deep breath. He knew what was coming. "How did he die?"

"You contact?" Bond shrugged. "Not well."

**THEN**

Bond grabbed Fisher by the neck and slammed him into the wall. He punched him in the gut twice, then backhanded him in the face. He landed on a sink.

**NOW**

Dryden smiled. "Made you feel it, did he?"

Bond almost scowled. Dryden knew from experience that Bond only killed if it was absolutely necessary.

**THEN**

Fisher brought up his gun and let a shot off. Bond ducked into a stall the second before and back himself against the stall wall. Fisher came around and was greeted by another punch. He dropped the gun this time. Bond picked it up and pistol-whipped Fisher, sending him back into the sink. Bond turned the water on and held Fisher's face down in it. He held it there until he stopped squirming, then pulled him out and dumped him on the floor.

**NOW**

Dryden continued to smile. "Did he give you anything? Any information?"

"No."

"Good."

"Not really."

"Actually it is. With no proof and a dead contact, you have absolutely no evidence to convict me of leaking information. And with only one kill, you have yet to be promoted to Double-0 status. But you needn't worry, the second is—" Once again Bond cut him short. This time, he didn't finish his sentence. He brought up his weapon and put a bullet straight into Dryden's eye.

"Yes," Bond said, flipping the safety switch on his Walther, "considerably."

**THEN**

Bond took a moment to catch his breath. He hadn't had this bad a fight for some time. While his back was turned, Fisher regained consciousness and pulled another gun from the small of his back. He raised the gun and was prepared to fire when Bond turned around and fired his weapon. The round struck Fisher in the exact center of his forehead.

_One down, one to go, _Bond thought.


	2. Le Chiffre

_**2 / Le Chiffre**_

A man was sitting in his study, reading one of his favorite thrillers when his cellphone rang. He reached past his bourbon and saw the name **mrwhite** and a Sienna, Italy number. The man answered the call. He said nothing, as his instructions were relayed automatically.

"_Your next visit will be in Uganda. The name is Obanno." _After that, the caller hung up. The man did the same.

He dialed his private pilot. "I need to go to Uganda, immediately." The pilot accepted, then both men hung up.

He had been called 'The Cypher'. His real name was unknown to everyone except himself. He personally went by the French term 'Le Chiffre'. It meant 'The Cypher', but it carried with it a certain sophistication that he preferred his enemies to know. Thirty years ago, he had been a very young agent of the Soviet Union. The best card player their efficient SMERSH agency had ever employed. After the fall of the Union, he bad become freelance.

On 9/01/01, Le Chiffre had been given a large sum of money to play with. This came from an Afghan terrorist group called Al Queda that no one had heard of at the time. By 9/08/01, he'd gambled a lot of that away, and had spent the rest on quickly training a group of people. After betting against the market for a short time, he sent those people to some American airports. On 9/11/01, Al Queda's name had been learned, and he'd given them back over ten times what they'd given him.

It was early 2002 when he came under the radar of MI6. He had been working with a terrorist group in Malaysia. MI6 had sent one of their coveted Double-0 Agents. His job was to assassinate the leader of the Malaysian organization, which he did. After that, Le Chiffre and his people had captured the SIS agent, tortured him, and sent him back to his boss half dead.

In 2005, he met Mr. White. He had no clue what the man's real name was, but it didn't matter to him. All that mattered to Le Chiffre was the money he was getting from Mr. White and his organization, a shadow operation called Quantum. They offered him so many jobs it was almost crazy. He turned down very few of them, because he'd heard very nasty bedtime stories about what Quantum did to people that disappointed them. One man hadn't lived long enough to tell them how badly he'd failed.

111

Le Chiffre got in his plane and sat down to another bottle of bourbon. As he sat there, his closest aid, Kratt, sat down across from him. Kratt pulled from his pocket a deck of cards. "Best two of three?" he asked. Le Chiffre nodded, then smiled.

Kratt chose the game, Blackjack. Le Chiffre accepted, then dealt Kratt his two cards and himself his two. Le Chiffre had a two and a seven. Kratt had a nine and his face down card. "Hit me," Le Chiffre said. Kratt gave him a third card. It was a seven. "I'll stay," he said.

Kratt smiled. "I think I've finally gotten you, boss." He turned over his nine and a two. Le Chiffre smiled. Kratt's faded. Le Chiffre turned over his two sevens and his two. Sixteen to Kratt's eleven.

"You were saying?"

111

Le Chiffre got out of his car and walked up the stairs of the Grand Hotel in Uganda's capital city. The place was the closest thing to heaven in the god-forsaken country. He entered the building and walked straight up to the second floor. Mr. White had chosen room 219.

The old man was sitting in a chair when Le Chiffre arrived. He was drinking from a bottle of whiskey, which was currently halfway finished. "You're late," was all he said.

"I was delayed."

"Valenka can wait. What I have for you today is golden."

Le Chiffre was almost angered that White knew Valenka's name. But, Quantum had its fingers everywhere. He should have been surprised if White _hadn't_ know her name.

White continued. "As I said. The client's name is Obanno. Steven Obanno. He's the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army."

"What does he need?"

"Money. He's gotten together a hundred million. He wants more."

"Tell him I'll take the money. All of it."

"How will you get him more?"

"Skyfleet is launching a new prototype plane this weekend. I'll destroy it. That should provide billions for Obanno to fuel his warfare."

White nodded. "Good. I'll meet with him in the morning. If all is well, I'll call."

111

Steven Obanno offered Mr. White a drink, but he turned it away. It probably had something to do with the business. Or, maybe it was the rain. He couldn't tell. All he knew was that the old man was very stoic. He'd barely spoken since he'd arrived. Of course, most of their business had been dealt with over the phone, or in their previous meetings. The only thing White was there for was to mediate the deal between Obanno and Le Chiffre.

Le Chiffre, however, still needed to arrive.

Obanno played with his machete. "Why should I trust this man I've never met with my money?" he asked White.

White merely smiled. "You asked for the introduction. That's all my organization will guarantee."

Obanno nodded. He understood where White was coming from. While Obanno's group fought out in the open, White's organization belonged to the shadows. Wars were fought on two fronts, these days. The battlefields and the banks. White's people could not afford to get involved too deeply in anything.

A car pulled up. Black. Limousine. A tall man with odd glasses got out first. After him came the man of the hour: Le Chiffre. While Obanno had seen images of Le Chiffre, he was surprised at the man's real physical appearance. A scar ran down one eye. The lower eyelid was quite deformed.

Le Chiffre entered the tent and stood directly in front of Obanno. Obanno looked him over. Le Chiffre spoke, an odd European accent escaping his lips. "I'm sure our mutual friend, Mr. White, has explained that I've supplied money to many freedom fighters over the years."

"I want no risk in the portfolio."

"I can assure you of that."

"Good." Obanno motioned to the people who were in charge of guarding the money. They brought forth many cases full of money. "One hundred fifty-seven million. All in large bills."

Le Chiffre grinned as he touched the money. He slid his hands across it, almost lovingly.

"Do you believe in God, Mr. Le Chiffre?"

Obanno's question must have caught Le Chiffre off guard. He quickly turned his head toward Obanno and gave him a sideways glance. He caught it eventually, then said, "No, I believe in a reasonable rate of return."

"Good. I don't want my money to be wasted."

Le Chiffre smiled, now. "It won't be."

111

Le Chiffre undid his tie and tossed his suit jacket on the hotel bed. He picked up his glass of brandy and took a quick drink before he dialed his stock broker in London. "Sell another two million shares of Skyfleet stock," he said to the man.

"_Sir, I must warn you that you're betting _against_ the market. No one expect this stock to go anywhere but up."_

"I have reason to believe it otherwise, my good friend. Just sell the stock." He hung up shortly afterward. He smiled before taking another swig of brandy.

_This is where it gets interesting._


	3. The Mongoose and the Snake

_**3 / The Mongoose and the Snake**_

Mollaka was drinking from a Dasani water bottle, watching the mongoose and the snake fight to the death, when Bond found him. Carter was down in the crowd. They were ready for the catch.

Bond's first assignment as Secret Service Agent Double-0 Seven was to catch Mollaka in order to interrogate him and find out his latest contact. They'd provided him with a hefty sum of cash for whatever it was they were about to do. MI6 had been keeping tabs on Mollaka's monetary and other dealings for the past six months, quietly, so as not to give Mollaka any suspicion.

"_There's our man," _Carter's voice came over the radio._ "Burnt scars all over his face."_

Bond turned to look over at Carter, he was being very obvious. It was a wonder no one had noticed him yet. "I wonder if bomb makers are insured for that?"

Mollaka took another drink from his bottle, then he must have heard a noise, or something. He reached around and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. Something in a text message or a reminder must have come up. He hit a button or two and put the phone in his backpack. He turned to the left and began walking toward Carter.

"_He's coming this way," _Carter said, raising his hand to his ear piece. _"He's coming this way, right towards me."_

"Stop touching your ear," Bond ordered.

"_Sorry?" _he nearly screamed.

"Put your hand down!"

Mollaka reached Carter, and took notice. He realized right then and there that Carter was unfriendly. Carter drew his weapon and was about to shoot, but Mollaka bolted, jumping down into the fight pit.

"Holster the bloody weapon, Carter, we need him alive!"

Carter didn't appear as though he was about to comply, but he was pushed over, into the pit. The impact must have initiated a reflex action. A single shot sounded. Everyone started screaming and running. Mollaka took the opportunity and weaved into and out of the crowd. Bond caught sight of him and instantly gave chase.

Mollaka jumped up onto the roof of a van. Bond ran around it. He then hopped over a fence, and Bond did the same. Mollaka jumped high, over a chain link fence. Bond had to climb it. When he landed in the sand on the other side, he caught sight of Mollaka. He had made it inside a construction site. Bond looked around for anything, and saw his advantage.

111

Mollaka stopped to catch his breath. The blonde-haired man was fast. Never before had he been given quite a run for his life. He turned back to see if he was still behind him, but saw nothing. There was a sound like a diesel engine starting up, but that was common to a construction site. He had to make it to the Embassy. That was his only goal now. The blonde-haired man would not be able to do anything then.

Suddenly a bulldozer crashed through the nearby fence and piping. The blonde-haired man was driving it. He turned the dozer directly towards Mollaka, who sprang into action and ran. He pulled out his USP .45-caliber and fired off a few shots, but they hit the glass, which was about four inches thick.

Mollaka climbed up onto the foundation of the building being put up. At the moment, it was nothing but a skeleton. He quickly started climbing up the steel framework of the building. Being a twenty year parkour master, this was no difficult feat.

111

Bond jumped out of the dozer and onto a crane that was positioned to the top of the building frame. He ran as fast as he could up the crane, matching Mollaka's speed up the framework itself. They reached the top at the same time, but Mollaka was still a tiny bit faster. He jumped onto a bundle of steel pipes that and climbed to the top of the crane holding them. Bond made the jump as well, then made the climb, but Mollaka was still faster. He was about to jump to another crane when Bond arrived at the top.

"I'd stop if I were you," Bond said, almost out of breath. "We'd rather have you alive."

Mollaka pulled his weapon out again and pulled the trigger six or seven times, none of which mattered, as his magazine was empty. He threw the weapon at Bond, who caught it. He then threw it back at Mollaka. The gun hit the bomber in the face and nearly knocked him over. Bond then cautiously walked over to him, but he was just a bit slow, Mollaka had jumped to a second crane and then to the roof of an uncompleted building.

Bond took careful timing and jumped, just barely landing on the second crane. When he climbed up, he jumped as quickly as possible to the roof of the building. He landed on an air conditioning unit that was none too comfortable to land on.

111

Mollaka entered the building as he saw the agent land on the air conditioner. He got in by way of a hole in the roof which had yet to be sealed or covered. Once inside, he broke into a run for the nearest elevator.

111

Bond kicked in a door and ran down some stairs until he caught sight of Mollaka. He turned and ran toward him, nearly losing his balance a few times on sawdust or sand. As he was about to grab the bomb maker, Mollaka jumped through a vent on the wall, near the ceiling. Bond simply broke through the weak plywood.

Once through the wall, Bond saw Mollaka bouncing down an elevator shaft. In order to cut him off, Bond slid along the floor using the sawdust and fell through a hole, landing directly on the bomber. Mollaka punched him in the face a couple times, then kicked Bond off of him before breaking into a run and jumping off the building down to ground level.

Bond gave chase, but took a hydraulic lift down instead of jumping. In order to speed it up, he pulled out his P99 and shot the hydraulics, sending the lift crashing down. Bond then hopped over the rail and onto the ground. Mollaka, however, had made it over another fence and was out into the street. Bond hopped the fence, then grabbed onto the back of a van that was heading the same way as Mollaka.

111

Mollaka made it to the Embassy. He was nearly out of breath. He showed the man at the gate his papers and walked inside. The agent was no where in sight. He was home free, now. He walked up to the second floor and into the officer of Prime Minister Umbawe, who was surprised to see his unwanted cousin after so long a time.

111

Bond watched as Mollaka entered the Embassy. He got down off the van and walked up to the man at the gate.

"James Bond. SIS Division MI6."

"Go on," the man said after looking over Bond's ID.

Bond walked inside. From what he'd gleaned from Mollaka's background, he was cousin, on his mother's side, to Prime Minister Umbawe. Umbawe's office was on the second floor, over looking the garden.

Bond reached the Prime Minister's office and kicked Mollaka into a chair, punched the Prime Minister and grabbed the gun from off of the table. Mollaka tried to punch him again, but Bond jammed the side of the handgun into his face, knocking him back into the chair. He pistol-whipped the Prime Minister, who attempted to retrieve another handgun from his desk drawer.

Bond grabbed Mollaka by his backpack and drug him out of the room. The Prime Minister must have hit the alarm, because it was blaring once they got to the hallway. Soldiers carrying AK-47s and 1911A1s burst into the hall and began shooting without question. Bond took a few of them out, going for head shots but scoring hits in the neck and shoulders as well.

Bond shoved Mollaka into what looked to be an accounting office, fired off a couple shots to empty the room, then pushed the bomb maker out the window. Bond jumped out the window as well, landing on Mollaka and quite possible breaking some of his bones, as well. When the soldiers the Prime Minister came out and surrounded him, Bond held Mollaka at gunpoint.

"Stop this!" the Prime Minister shouted. Bond stood still. "Listen to me! You're surrounded! Throw down your weapon and come with us."

Bond pulled the gun off to the side, ejected the empty magazine and ejected the one round in the chamber. He then tossed the gun off to the side. He pushed Mollaka away—quickly and carefully grabbing his backpack—and waited two seconds before drawing his P99 and shooting first Mollaka, then a flammable barrel just behind the soldiers and the Prime Minister. He hopped over a fence just after and hid out of sight.

He emptied the contents of the backpack on the ground in front of him. A bomb made of two sticks of dynamite, a cell phone, a bottle of water, a picture of an aircraft hangar somewhere. Bond looked over the picture, but there was nothing to determine the location of the hangar. He picked up the cell phone next and saw that a text message was the most recent thing sent to the phone. It was a just a single word, from a blocked number.

ELLIPSIS

Bond didn't know what it meant, but he kept the word on his mind. He had a feeling it was going to be very important in the near future.


	4. Head in the Sand

_**4 / Head in the Sand**_

Head of the British Secret Service division MI6, the woman known to her people only as 'M' left the committee's room in a mad fury. Bill Tanner, her chief of staff, followed behind her very quickly. She was barely giving him a chance to keep up.

"What a bunch of self-righteous, ass-covering _prigs!_" she shouted, almost certain they could hear her. "I report to the Prime Minister, and even _he_ isn't stupid enough to ask what we do!"

Tanner tried to speak, "Listen, Ma'am..."

M cut him off. "They don't care what we do, they care what we _get photographed_ doing."

"Ma'am, Double-0 Seven was just—"

"Yes, Double-0 Seven! How the hell could he be so _stupid_? I give him Double-0 status and what does he do? He destroys a bloody embassy! Is the man deranged? Where the hell is he?"

Tanner almost didn't answer for fear she'd cut him off again, then he said, "We don't know."

"Of course! God! I've never gotten this much aggravation from my _children_, I don't expect it from my agents!"

"Yes, Ma'am..." Tanner shook his head. She'd never been this mad at any other agents. Bond's career was off to a very bad start, it seemed.

"In the old days, if an agent did something _this_ embarrassing," she smacked the newspaper in her hand, showing the picture of Bond holding Mollaka at gunpoint with the Madagascar military all pointing their weapons at him, "he'd have the good sense to defect. Christ, I miss the Cold War!"

111

Bond took the memory card out of the cell phone and put it in the laptop computer sitting on the coffee table. He brought up the secure MI6 website and did a search. The location of the phone that had sent the ELLIPSIS message was what he was looking for.

It took a few minutes for the triangulation, but eventually Nassau, Bahamas appeared. The triangulation zoomed in on an upscale sort of place called The Ocean Club. He memorized the location, then heard the elevator start its ascent. He closed the laptop and picked up a deck of cards.

M exited the elevator and turned the lights on. Bond imagined she was quite surprised to see him there, sitting in the living room of her flat. Her first words to him were, "You've got a bloody cheek."

Bond knew what she was talking about: the camera that had seen him at in Madagascar. "Sorry. I'll shoot the camera next time."

"I'd rather it be yourself."

Bond smiled.

M continued: "You broke into a foreign embassy, nearly killed a foreign Prime Minister and why? So you could kill a _nobody_!" She threw the newspaper down on the table. "We wanted to question him, not _kill_ him!" She walked around the room. "Carter'll be in the hospital for days after being trampled by no less than fifty people. The manager of that snake fighting ring is looking for answers. The Madagascar government wants you dead or worse! You violated the most absolutely inviolate rule in the playbook, Bond." For a moment she seemed to realize where she was and asked the obvious question: "And how the hell did you figure out where I live?"

Bond smiled again. "Same way I figured out your name. I thought 'M' was just a randomly assigned letter, I had no idea it stood for—"

M cut him off. "Utter one more syllable and I'll have you killed!"

Bond was still smiling. "You know, M, I thought that one less bomb maker in the world would be a good thing."

"Yes," M chuckled, "one bomb maker. We're trying to find out how an entire group of terrorist organizations is being funded and you give us _one bomb maker_, hardly the big picture, don't you think, Double-0 Seven? The man wasn't even a true believer. He was a gun-for-hire. A mercenary. I can't even understand why all of this shit in Madagascar happened."

Bond sat back. "Carter blew it. He blew his own cover."

"And what blame was yours?"

"I did break a good deal of construction equipment. Not to mention the embassy."

M sat down. "What am I going to do with you, Bond? God... Bond, this may be a little too much for a," she paused, as if trying to find the right words, "blunt instrument, like yourself, to understand, but I need you to judge every situation dispassionately."

"You want me to be half-monk, half-hitman?"

"Exactly." She picked up the newspaper. "I also need you away from London. Go and stick your head in the sand somewhere, because these bastards want your head," she looked up at him, "and I'm seriously considering feeding you to him."

Bond nodded. "I think I have a suitable place." He stood up and walked over to the elevator. He pressed the button and waited. M called his name when he was about to enter.

"Don't ever break into my house again," she said.

"Ma'am," he said.

111

Bond arrived at Nassau the next day. He rented a car and drove to the Ocean Club. Whatever he was looking for was there. He hoped that it would present itself quickly.

When he arrived, a plethora of people were going in and out of the building: loungers, golfers, people who looked like they were going to play card games. The multitudes of different types of people were amazing to watch. He thought back to Madagascar, where dozens of similar types of people were standing around an arena, watching two animals fight. Bond had never been one to fit into a crowd, just watching other people was interesting to him.

He looked around and saw exactly what he was looking for: security cameras. The call had come from this club, what he needed to do was gain entry into the security office, view the videos. Hopefully, he could check the time stamp on the text message and discover the time when it was sent, cross-reference that with the time stamp on one of the videos, and find who sent the message by checking out who was on their cell phone at exactly that time. Granted, in this day and age, ninety percent of the world had a cell phone, and on this side of the planet in particular, people were on them seventy-five percent of the day, but hopefully, it would work.

"Hey!" a German voice said from in front of him. Bond looked up to see two men dressed in classic golfing gear, holding keys. "Are you going to take this or make me wait?"

Bond stood up. They mistook him for a valet? "Yes sir," he said, taking the keys. "Sorry sir."

He walked over to a yellow Land Rover, licence plate AUR1C. _Funny_, Bond thought. He got in, turned the keys, drove to the nearby parking lot. He was lucky, his distraction would be easy to do. He found an empty spot, then backed in. He didn't stop at the divider railing, however, he backed right into it and sent every car alarm in that section of the parking lot off. Afterward, he got out of the car, and tossed the keys on the hood.

Security personnel were rushing out to see what had happened when Bond made it back to the building. He went inside as two men came sprinting out of the security office, also going to see what was going on in the parking lot. Bond slipped into the security office and shut the door. He walked over to the monitors and saw from exactly the camera he was looking for: the one that looked out onto the front entrance. He had to hope ELLIPSIS had used his phone there. He walked over to the recorded files and found the Blu-ray that contained the image from two days ago. He fast-forwarded to the time the message was sent, and found exactly what he was looking for.

A man on a cell phone, getting out of a very expensive Aston Martin DB5. Beside him, an equally beautiful woman in a black dress. The time stamp on the video and the time of the text message matched exactly.

Bond knew who he was looking for, he just didn't have a name. He did, however, have a way to get it. Anyone with a car that expensive and well-kept must have money, and anyone with money must own a home or a permanent villa in a place like this. He just needed to ask the right question in order to find out who it was he was looking for.

He walked up to the woman at the front desk. She said, "Hello, sir, welcome to The Ocean Club. Will you be staying?"

"Yes, but, it's a spur-of-the-moment thing and I haven't got a reservation."

"We have an Ocean View Villa."

Bond handed her his credit card. "Perfect." She scanned it, did all the necessary things, then handed it back to him. Bond then added, "Oh, last time I was here, I parked next to a beautiful 1964 Aston Martin, and I'm ashamed to say I nicked the paint. Do you know where I could find—"

She cut him off. "Mr. Dimitrios."

"Right."

She leaned in close and whispered. "If he hasn't said anything, I wouldn't bring it up."

"What I felt... _compelled_ to meet him?"

She grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. "He has a house on the beach."

"Thank you," he said, taking the paper.

111

Bond watched Dimitros' villa from the beach. He saw little, other than his wife riding on horseback and Dimitrios himself coming out every so often to call her inside. After the sun went down, Bond went back inside and pulled his laptop from his bag. He signed in to the MI6 website once more. He typed in Dimitrios and waited for the results.

111

Back in London, M was almost asleep when she heard the phone ring. She rolled over and picked it up. Her husband didn't even stir. "What is it?" she asked.

"_He's in the Bahamas. Nassau," _Tanner answered.

"You called me to share his holiday plans?"

"_He's signed into our secure website using your name and password," _Tanner said.

"How the hell does he know these things?"

"_I couldn't answer that, ma'am."_

"Who's he looking at?

"_Alex Dimitrios."_

M tapped the button next to her bed and brought up the computer built into her nightstand. Dimitrios' face was plastered on the screen.

She said, "That slimy bugger."

Suddenly, the image changed. Several known associates of Dimitrios' appeared. The last one to appear was Le Chiffre.

"Le Chiffre?"

111

Bond checked his shirt one more time before going into the club. Dimitrios apparently played Texas Hold 'Em every time he came to The Ocean Club. Bond hoped to corner him there and get something out of him. Or at least see what the man is like.

Bond stopped at the bar and ordered a drink. He rather fancied his newest discovery. Something he'd come up with one day while he was mixing drinks. He gave the ingredients to the bartender, then waited. He turned to his left and saw the two German golfers sitting there, staring at him. When he his drink came, he nodded to them and said, _"Guten abend."_

He took his drink and walked over to the table Dimitrios was playing at. They had one less player than they needed. "Mind if I join you?" he asked the dealer. She nodded.

They played for four hours. After the first hour, it had basically become a duel between Bond and Dimitrios. Dimitrios had lost twenty thousand dollars in the past two hours, most of it to Bond. Currently, they were the last two players. As the final round was about to begin, Dimitrios' wife entered the room, wearing an extremely stunning red dress. She walked around behind Dimitrios and put her arms around his neck, then left a kiss and a smear of lipstick on his cheek.

"If that was for luck, you're two hours late," he said to her. Bond smiled.

Bond remembered from his inquiries into the MI6 database that the wife's name was Solange. She'd come from the Italian quarter of New York City.

He returned his attention to Dimitrios, away from Solange's beautiful neckline. Dimitrios was a sore loser. He didn't like being stuffed with the losing hand. He assumed that if he bluffed you with ten thousand dollars on the table, you'd fold and he'd win the pot. He'd guessed wrong playing with Bond.

All five cards were down. Bond had two Aces. He knew he had the win, with another Ace on the table.

Dimitrios pushed all of his chips forward. "All in, wait," he pulled his check book from his pocket, "plus, twenty thousand."

"Table stakes only, sir," the dealer said.

Dimitrios wasn't happy. He picked up a key ring with a small Aston Martin trinket hanging from it. "This is on the table. It's my car."

"I'm sorry, sir."

Bond smiled. He'd love to win that car. "Please, give him a chance to win his money back," he said.

"Fine," the dealer seemed aggravated. "Let's see some cards, gentlemen."

Dimitrios revealed a Ten and a King.

"Three Kings." The dealer pushed up the two Kings already on the table.

Bond flipped over his two Aces.

"Trip Aces." The dealer pulled down the two Kings and pushed up the one Ace. "Aces win."

Dimitrios looked as though he was about draw a gun and shoot. Instead, he just pushed his chips toward Bond. Bond quickly grabbed the Aston Martin trinket and put it in his pocket. "Oh, and the valet ticket?" he asked. Dimitrios looked as angry as a man could get, then pulled out the valet ticket for his car and nearly jammed it in Bond's hand.

As Bond collected his winnings, he watched Dimitrios walk away, right past his wife.


	5. When the Storm Arrives

_**5 / When the Storm Arrives**_

Solange Dimitrios leaned against the wall as the valet brought her husband's car up to the front of the building. It was not, however, her husband who accepted the keys for the car. Instead, it was a blonde-haired man with a British accent. "Thank you," he said to the valet.

Solange laughed. "No wonder he was so upset," she said. "I always knew he'd do something this stupid just because of a little game of poker."

"He does stupid things often?" the man asked.

"Only when money or me comes into the equation."

The man laughed, a very dry laugh.

"You have a way home?"

She tapped the car. "I'm sorry, if he sees me show up at home in this, after he just lost it, then he'll go nuts. I'm afraid I'm not _that_ cruel."

"Maybe you're just out of practice." He smiled. "How about a drink at my place, then?"

"Your place?" Solange liked where this was going. "Is it close?"

"Very."

The man _was_ very attractive. Solange stepped up to the car. "Maybe just one drink."

The man got in the car, Solange did as well. Never one for safety belts, she didn't wear hers. He started the car and pulled forward, around the fountain, into the parking lot, around a group of cars, back around the fountain once more, and right back where they'd started: in front of the hotel.

He simply looked at her and said, "Welcome to my home." Both erupted into laughter.

111

Alex Dimitrios was escorted onto Le Chiffre's boat by his servant, Kratt. Dimitrios hated the stupid look that always seemed to be stuck to Kratt's face. His odd glasses and close cropped hair didn't help a bit. He was still a freak.

Le Chiffre was sitting in his private quarters, drinking a glass of scotch, as always. He wasn't happy at all. Dimitrios in particular didn't like looking at Mollaka's face plastered on the laptop in front of him. "You got him for me. You gave him _my_ money. You—"

"I gave him _Obanno's_ money. I don't see what you're bitching about. All I did was get you the man."

"A man who was being watched by the British Secret Service. Which makes me wonder if I can trust you at all."

Dimitrios rolled his eyes. "I've got another ready for the job. All he needs is the particulars, and payment."

Le Chiffre sighed, then said, "Give him what he needs. And make sure he's safe from SIS agent James Bond."

111

Bond pulled Solange's mouth away from him. Utter bliss was the look her face portrayed. Her lipstick was completely smeared. He smiled as his glance caught sight of her dress, tossed like a blanket over the top of the chair by the door.

They kissed for some time before either of them spoke. She spoke in a very light voice. "You like married women, don't you, James?" They kissed again, then she moaned once their lips parted. "Why can't I ever fall in love with nice guys?" Another kiss. "Far too many chances, but none of them right. Instead, I fall for guys like you, like my husband." A fifth kiss. "Why can't more nice guys be like you?"

Bond rolled her over, landing on top of her. "'Cause then they'd be bad."

"Oh! Yes! Very bad!" she screamed.

Bond finished kissing her for the seventh time. "What makes your husband a bad man?"

She moaned. "His nature, I suppose."

"The nature of his work?"

"A mystery to me."

They rolled over again, this time with Solange landing on top of Bond. Three or four more kisses later, neither was doing anything. Heavy breathing was in order for both of them. "Can I ask you a personal question?" he asked, lifting up her head.

"Now would seem an appropriate time."

"Does ELLIPSIS mean anything to you?"

A phone rang. Bond knew his was off, shutting down his link to MI6. Solange got up, grabbed her purse from the table and took her phone out. "Should I ask him about it?"

"No."

She answered the phone. "Yes dear?" A muted voice on the other end. Bond couldn't hear it. "When will you be back?" More muted voices. "All right. I lo—" The look on her face told Bond that he'd hung up mid-sentence. She dropped the phone on the table, then sat down on Bond's groin. "Apparently, he's on the last flight to Miami. So you have _all night_ to question me."

Bond smiled. "In that case, we're gonna need more champagne." He lifted Solange off of him, then walked over to the wall phone. He dialed room service. "I'll need more champagne, same thing, '62. Beluga caviar."

"_Will that be for two, sir?"_

"What? No. For one."

111

Bond left Solange sleeping on his bed, then dialed Tanner. "I need a flight to Miami, right now."

"_The last flight from Nassau leaves in twenty minutes."_

"I'm already at the airport, Tanner, just get me on that damn plane."

"_What's in Miami?"_

"Dimitrios will be. He's on that flight."

"_Give your passport and credit card to the person at the desk, they'll find a last-minute ticket made out for you."_

"Good."

Bond was breaking a good deal of speed laws making his way from the villa to the airport. Tanner had come through for him, the ticket was waiting when he gave the woman at the ticket counter his passport and credit card.

He checked the data on his phone. Dimitrios was in Second Class, seat 24B. Bond, too, was in Second Class, seat 44A. Dimitrios was sitting next to an old woman with an excessively bad temper, while Bond was next to a sleeping child and his businessman father.

The flight was very uneventful. The in-flight movie was _Layer Cake_, while the flight attendants weren't exactly anything to look at. The plane touched down in Miami at 10:38 PM local time, but time meant little to a city that barely ever slept. Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas. None of them were quiet towns in the dead of the night.

Dimitrios grabbed a duffel bag from luggage and hailed cab. Bond called for one as well, told him to follow the other cab.

The trip through Miami was slow, due in part to a heavy storm that had kicked up by the time the cabs had gotten onto the freeway. Bond had nearly fallen asleep before he noticed Dimitrios' cab had stopped. Bond had his cabbie stop the car, then paid him. He kept well behind Dimitrios as he walked up to the entrance of a kind of museum. Bond hung back as Dimitrios was asked for a ticket. Tanner couldn't help him here, Bond would have to find another way in.

He ran around to the back of the building, where two men were unloading coffins out of a truck. Bond drew his P99 from the shoulder holster and slowly walked up behind one of them. He stuck the barrel to the man's head and whispered, "Show me the back way in."

"Okay, bub, don't shoot," the man said, a slight Canadian accent.

The other man dropped his end of the coffin and drew a pistol. He fired, three silenced shots hit the truck behind Bond as he ducked. Bond fired his own silenced weapon and hit the man in the shoulder. During the small firefight, the first man had dropped his end of the coffin and made a mad dash for the door just feet away. Bond gave chase and slipped in the back door to find himself in the museum.

Almost with luck and certainly with ease, he found Dimitrios standing at a table, at which three skeletons were playing Gin. Another man walked up to him just as a group of people obscured Bond's view of the meeting. By the time the group moved and Bond reached another good vantage point, Dimitrios and the other man were gone.

"James Bond," Dimitrios said behind him. He felt a sharp prick at his back. "You've stuck your neck in my affairs two times two many."

"Speaking of affairs, I noticed you didn't ask what Solange was doing when you called her."

"What makes you think I didn't know you were there? I saw her leave with you. You think that's the first time she's cheated? You think I haven't cheated on _her_?"

Bond spun around and grabbed Dimitrios' hand before he jammed the knife into Bond's stomach. "You're extremely lucky, Mr. Bond."

"You've got men all over this place, don't you?"

"No. Just a few outside. And one on his way to Miami Airport."

Bond thought for a few moments, but couldn't remember anything special happening at the airport. Probably just a random act of terrorism. "What are you telling me that for?" Bond asked, trying to understand what Dimitrios was getting at.

"Because you won't get there in time to stop him."

Bond started squeezing Dimitrios' hand, making him drop the knife. Before either could pick it up, Bond drew his P99 and put a bullet directly into Dimitrios' stomach. "We'll see about that," Bond said as the last of Dimitrios' life left him.

It took Bond a few moments to realize, as he was running out of the building, that Dimitrios didn't have the duffel bag he'd carried inside. That must have been their meeting: to obtain the duffel. As he got outside, he saw literally hundreds of people with duffel bags. He knew he only had Dimitrios and his man out of sight for less than thirty seconds, so the man probably hadn't made his way to the airport yet.

A thought crossed Bond's mind. He still had Mollaka's cell phone. He pulled up the ELLIPSIS number and dialed. He hoped they were using the same codeword.

A single phone rang. The phone's owner was holding a duffel bag.

"_Hello?" _the man asked, a slight Spanish accent. After Bond didn't answer, he hung up and hailed a taxi.

Bond ran down the stairs and hailed a cab of his own. "Get me to Miami Airport, as fast as you can. I don't care how many traffic laws you have to break, either.

"Somebody's in a hurry."

"I'm in an _extreme_ hurry, and I'd rather not be questioned, just put your damn foot on the pedal!"


	6. The Largest Plane in the World

_**6 / The Largest Plane in the World**_

Bond nearly gave the cabbie his wallet due to his impatience towards going after Dimitrios' bomber. The duffel was doubtless a load of explosives that he'd detonate in an extremely public place, probably the middle of the airport's mall (as all airports on the planet seemed to have one, nowadays). He caught sight of the bomber and followed him into the airport.

He surprised Bond by going directly to the airport metal detectors. If there were explosives in the bag, the metal detectors or the dogs would find them. Did he have something else in the duffel? Bond knew that he'd have to explain his P99 to the men at the metal detectors, and that could tip off the bomber.

Bond waved over a security officer and showed him his licence. The officer waved him through. By the time Bond had made it out into the airport commons, the bomber was crossing toward a booth of sunglasses. Bond kept him in sight, but tried to remain inconspicuous by grabbing the latest issue of some magazine that he wasn't even looking at. The bomber returned the sunglasses that he'd been looking at, then a group of people came between Bond and the bomber. When they passed, he was gone.

_Second time that's happened to me, dammit._

Bond dropped the magazine, then went looking for the bomber.

111

Carlos had spotted the British spy the second he'd entered the airport. He played along like he didn't see him until reaching the sunglasses stand, then took the opportunity of a large crowd to sneak away and enter a changing room. He took the uniform out of the bag and started changing into it. When he was done, he stuffed his own clothes into the bag and left it in the changing room.

111

Bond looked around for nearly five minutes before he saw someone with a duffel bag that looked exactly like the one the bomber was carrying. It was a woman, giving the bag to someone at a service counter. The cashier checked the bag out and pulled out several pieces of clothing.

The bomber had changed his clothes.

Bond looked around again. Suddenly, he saw a guard wearing his clothes a little differently. Unlike the others, his shirt was untucked and his collar was uneven. He walked up to a door and typed a code into a control panel. Bond ran a mad dash toward the bomber and hit the door as soon as it shut behind the bomber.

_Damn!_

Bond pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed MI6.

"_Tanner."_

"Put her on."

"_I'm sorry, can't do that right now."_

"Damn it, put her on!"

"_What is it now, Bond?"_

"You put her on, because I need her to call Miami Airport and tell them a goddamn bomb is going to go off!"

Tanner audibly sighed. _"I'll put her on, now."_

"I thought you might."

Minutes later, M's hurried voice came over the phone. _"Bond, what is it?"_

Bond, however, was studying the control panel. It required an eight digit code. It hit him in seconds. There had to be a reason behind the ELLIPSIS codeword. It was a phone number for two different cell phones. Why? Two bombers had been given the number. There could only be one reason: it was necessary to complete the mission. Eight digits. ELLIPSIS. 35547747.

"_Dammit, Bond, I was in the middle of paperwork! What do you have?"_

This woke Bond from his daze. "I'll call you back," he said, quickly, then hung up. He hit the numbers 35547747 and the door was suddenly unlocked. He rushed inside, after the bomber.

111

"Tanner, what's he doing at the Miami Airport?" M asked, walking into her Chief of Staff's office. "And why the hell did he just hang up on me?"

"I'm trying to find that out now, Ma'am," Tanner said, checking news reports about Miami Airport on the Internet. "I think I've found it. Skyfleet 777 prototype. 'Largest airplane in the world, being unveiled at Miami Airport today.'"

"They're going to blow up a plane? God, the Americans are going to shit themselves if another plane blows up on their soil." M picked up the phone. "Get me 007, now!" she shouted at the communication people.

111

Carlos walked into the boiler room and found what he needed to cause as much chaos as possible to slow down the Brit. A fire alarm. He broke the glass and inserted the key into the hole, turned it, and suddenly the sprinkler system came alive, drenching everyone in that section of the airport in water.

Now he needed a gun. Because he had to go through the metal detectors, he couldn't carry a weapon into the airport. He knew, however, that several security guards didn't take their weapons on duty, nor were some guards even on duty, meaning their weapons were still in their lockers. It would have been simple to break into a locker and steal a weapon. He now hoped that someone had left their weapon out, as he had little time before the Brit eventually found him.

He was very lucky. A gun was lying on a bench, loaded with the safety off. He grabbed it and stuffed it in his belt. Now he just needed to get outside. Once he was outside, he could blow up the plane, just as Mr. Dimitrios' employers wanted.

111

Bond caught sight of the bomber as he entered a room. Moments later, the sprinkler system kicked on, and the dozens of people in the cramped hallway began running, causing even more havoc than there was to begin with. Bond was shoved into a wall, losing his line-of-sight of the room the bomber had entered.

He pushed his way through the chaotic jumble of people and caught sight of the bomber heading out a door. Bond drew his P99 and fired off a shot into the ceiling, sending the dozens around him in the opposite direction. He dashed toward the door and burst outside, dripping wet.

His cell phone rang. "What?" he shouted.

"_Bond," _M's voice came over the phone, _"his target is the Skyfleet prototype! It's launching today!"_

Bond looked across the expanse of the tarmac and saw what M was talking about: a plane as large as a skyscraper was emerging from a hangar.

_Must be the largest plane in the world. And Dimitrios wanted to blow it up. He was a smart bastard, I'll give him that._

Bond saw a man fall on his back. Bullet holes in his head. His gasoline truck suddenly started up. Bond ran and caught up to the truck just as it began to move. He jumped on the back, grabbing the ladder with only one hand. His P99 was still in the other, he realized. He started sliding his way around the truck to the front. The bomber must have hit the cruise control, however, as he was ready with a kick, almost knocking Bond off. He did, however, drop the P99.

He grabbed hold of the top of the truck with his other hand, then climbed up. He took a moment to catch his breath.

_Well, James, _he said to himself, _you wanted to be a Double-0..._ He almost cursed himself for it.

Bond grabbed a hold of the handholds on the driver's side and swung down, placing his kick well, he went through the window and hit the bomber in the face, knocking him to the right and sending the truck in the same direction. The bomber, however, reciprocated quickly, drawing his weapon and taking pot shots at Bond.

Bond made another swing and let go of the handholds at just the last time, kicking the bomber out the passenger's door. The bomber kept a hold of the seatbelt, and pulled himself back up. They traded blows for a few moments, neither coming out the victor, until the bomber trained on of his punches on Bond's nose, breaking it and sending him onto the tarmac hard.

Bond got back up just in time to see the gas truck continue on its course to the Skyfleet plane. He looked around and saw a baggage carrier parked by a plane. An airport employee was busy loading luggage onto it. Bond hopped into the driver's seat. "Gonna have to borrow this," he said as he hit the gas. The employee shouted something incoherent (at least to Bond), as Bond sped away.

The baggage carrier wasn't as fast as the gas truck, but the truck must have hit something on the tarmac, because two of its six wheels were torn open, rubber flapping against the pavement every time they spun around. When Bond was close enough, he leaped off of the baggage carrier and landed on the rear ladder of the gas truck again.

He made his way around to the passenger's seat again, this time greeted by the bomber's gun. He quickly dove inside and swatted the gun out of the man's hand. Along with the gun went the bomber's cell phone. Bond realized in an instant that the phone must have been the trigger for the bomb. The bomber took advantage of Bond's momentary lapse in attention and knocked him backward. Like the bomber himself, earlier, Bond maintained a grip on the seatbelt. As he dangled out the side, he saw it: the bomb itself. It was a key chain.

Bond's new plan was simple: grab the bomb. He did so, then pulled himself up. Just as the bomber was about to dive out of the vehicle, Bond grabbed his belt. The bomber elbowed him, knocking him back again, then jumped out.

He saw what the bomber had done: the cruise control was set and rigged; the steering wheel was seat belted in position; the truck was on a direct collision course with the plane. Bond quickly grabbed his pocket knife and cut the seatbelt, then started turning. He couldn't shut down the cruise control, but with two of the tires out, if he made a sharp enough turn, he could put the truck on its side with enough time for it to slow to a stop. The truck turned over, landing on the passenger's side. Bond himself fell against that side of the truck. With no door, he had to grab hold of anything to keep himself from hitting pavement.

The truck slid to a stop just feet away from the plane. Bond could barely control his breathing for a moment. He climbed out of the truck and jumped down to the ground.

_Sweet ground that isn't moving... Never thought I'd love it as much as I do now..._

Bond attempted to get up, but he was just as swiftly hit in the back of the head with the butt of a shotgun.

"Stay down!" an American voice shouted. Another pulled him to his feet and shoved him against a police car.

"You have the right to remain silent," the officer said, reading his Miranda rights. Bond looked up and saw the bomber, smiling widely. He was holding his cell phone up. In triumph, he pressed the send button. "You have the right to an attorney. If you do not have an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the courts." Suddenly, the bomber was confused. In that single moment of confusion, he realized something, and grabbed for the bomb now clipped to his belt.

Bond smiled as the bomb exploded, taking the bomber with it.


	7. The Girl from Treasury

_**7 / The Girl from Treasury**_

Le Chiffre couldn't help but look at the newspaper. "Skyfleet Prototype Attacked by Terrorists!" He wasn't surprised that it said that. What shocked him was that underneath was, "Plot foiled just in time!" He threw his bourbon at the wall. That wasn't how it was supposed to go down.

The phone rang. It was his broker. _"I trust you've read the news?"_

"Of course," Le Chiffre answered, trying his best to keep his breathing down.

"_I'm sorry, sir, I'm not yet sure how much you've lost."_

"One hundred one million, two hundred forty six thousand and seventy dollars." He hung up, probably angering his broker to no end. He turned to Kratt. "Someone talked."

111

Bond lit a cigarette once he got off the helicopter back at his villa at the Ocean View. He hadn't had one in hours, and he was starting to get irritated. Sixty or seventy MI6 personnel were wandering around, collecting things.

"Quite the body count you're stacking up, Bond." M's voice came from behind. Bond turned and saw her, a tired look on her face. No doubt, she'd spent hours trying to get him out of the Miami-Dade jail house the police at the airport had thrown him in. "Did she know anything that could compromise you?"

"No."

"Not your name?"

"No."

She stepped up beside him. Bond turned to look at the figure caught between two hammocks. Strangled. Solange Dimitrios was now as dead as the husband she knew nothing about. "She was tortured first. As you'd already killed her husband, she must have been the last person left to question."

"She was asleep before I left. She probably didn't even know I was gone."

M stared at Bond. "Who else is going to die before this is over, Bond?" Bond didn't answer, she just shrugged. She walked into the villa. Bond followed. "You looked over Dimitrios' known associates. What do you know about a man named Le Chiffre?"

"French for 'The Cypher'. A cruel player of Baccarat. No one knows his real name and he keeps himself well hidden. He has an extreme ocular problem, as one of his tear ducts is damaged due to a knife fight in the late eighties. He weeps blood from time to time. Why?"

"For the past few days, someone's been selling millions in Skyfleet stock."

"You think it's Le Chiffre?"

"The stock market closed on 9/11, for obvious reasons. When the market reopened on 9/16, someone made a huge fortune after selling airline stock." A thin man, with a mustache and bald spot, walked up to Bond and M while she was talking. "The same thing was supposed to happen with Skyfleet today. You stopped it." She nodded to the thin man, who took a hypo gun and stuck Bond's left arm with it.

"Ow," Bond said, very blandly. "Losing stocks like that, Le Chiffre must have spent far too much of his client's money."

"He's still got enough to sponsor a high stakes poker game at Casino Royale in Montenegro. Ten million dollar buy-in, five million re-buy. Winner takes the whole pot, potentially one hundred fifty million dollars. I'm placing you in the game. You're replacing a man who was playing for a syndicate."

Bond held up his arm. "Is this so you can keep an eye on me?"

"Yes. According to your dossier, you're the best player in the Service. I want to make sure you're staying at that poker table and not," she paused and glanced over at Solange's tangled-up corpse, "focusing your attention elsewhere."

"You can drop the act. You knew I wasn't going to let this go, didn't you?"

M smiled. "Well, I knew you were you. You'll meet your chaperon from Treasury on the train to Montenegro."

"Chaperon? You put a chip in my arm in order to track my every move and you give me a chaperon? I'm flattered."

"Don't be, Bond. If you _weren't_ the best player in the Service, you wouldn't be anywhere near this operation. I don't have to warn you to stay emotionally unattached, but your problem is your ego. Take it out of the equation. The bomber nearly destroyed the Skyfleet 777 because you felt the need to toy with Dimitrios."

"He toyed with me, not the other way around."

"It doesn't matter. I suggest you get cleaned up. You're being shipped back to MI6 for your full mission briefing."

Bond nodded, then smiled. "So what's the plan?"

"Le Chiffre doesn't have a hundred fifty million to lose. Beat him, then we'll grant him asylum from whoever it is he's working for."

"What makes you think he'll take asylum?"

"His employers are probably less accepting of failure than he is."

111

Bond was sitting in the dining car of the train to Montenegro, flipping through the menu, when a bag was suddenly dropped into the seat in front of him. He lowered the menu and saw quite an exquisite woman sitting across from him. Emerald green eyes, black hair and the most slender facial structure he'd ever seen.

"I'm the money," she said with a clip to her voice not unlike actresses in London plays.

Bond set the menu aside and said, "Every penny of it."

The woman retrieved a business card from her breast pocket and slid it across the table. "I'm from the Treasury. I'm the one representing you in the poker game."

Vesper Lynd. That's what the card read. It also gave a home address and a phone number. "Vesper?" he asked. "I do hope you gave your parents hell for that."

She ignored the joke, and pulled paperwork out of her bag. "I've never seen so much money put into one account at any time. Your bosses must be pretty well connected for something like this." She picked up another menu and looked it over. She looked away from it and up at him. "I do hope that you've given some thought to the fact that if you lose this game, our government will have directly financed terrorism." She looked down at the menu again "What looks good?"

Bond simply smiled.

111

"So, you're saying it's all chance?" Vesper asked.

"Most gambling is. Of course, you also have to know the signs, what to watch out for." Bond took a sip of his Bollinger.

"That would be what you call reading people?"

"Yes."

"And you're good at that?" she took a bite of her steak. "Reading people?"

"I am. It's not hard to stare them in the face and make them fold."

She finished off her meal and wiped her mouth with her napkin. "That would be what you call bluffing?"

Bond smiled. "You've heard the term. Then you should also know that in poker, you don't play your hand, you play the man across from you."

"So, if you can read people, can you read me?"

Bond took another sip of Bollinger. "Your beauty's a problem. You feel you won't be taken seriously."

"Which can be said of any attractive woman."

"Yes, but this one," he indicated her, "over compensates by wearing slightly masculine clothing, which, ironically, makes it harder for her to be promoted by her male superiors, which gives her a slight _prickly_ demeanor. Now, I'd have normally said 'only child' but, you see, by the way you ignored my quip about your parents... well, I'm going to have to go with 'orphan'."

Vesper smiled. "Very good, Mr. Bond. Now I'm certain our money's in good hands. My turn, now. By the cut of your suit, you went to Oxford or one of those other schools that teaches you that people naturally dress like that. Am I close?"

"Dead on, so far."

"You also wear a highly priced watch, one of those special types. Rolex?"

"Omega."

"Hm. You wear that suit with such disdain, however, that tells me you didn't come from money, and your schoolmates never let you forget it, which means you were at those schools by someone else's grace. And, since your first thought of me ran to 'orphan', I'd say you're one as well." She smiled again. "This whole thing has been fun."

"You did well for your first time, Miss Lynd."

"Thank you, Mr. Bond. How was your lamb?"

"Skewered. One sympathizes."

"Well, I do hope you know that this time we share in Montenegro, I will be spending watching our money, and keeping my eyes away from your perfectly formed ass."

Bond smiled. "You noticed?"

"Good evening, Mr. Bond."

"Good evening, Miss Lynd."

Both stood up. Vesper shook Bond's hand, picked up her bag, and walked toward the bed car. Bond watched her own perfectly formed ass swing back and forth down the aisle. He shook his head and smiled.


	8. Things Will Not Be the Same

_**8 / Things Will Not Be the Same**_

Bond and Vesper departed the train and discovered M had a car set up for them, to take them to the hotel.

"Mr. Bond?" a young man next to the car asked. "This was left for you."

"Thank you," Bond said, taking the parcel the young man had held out.

Once they were in the car and on the road, Bond opened the parcel and discovered it was a set of instructions and details about the operation. Bond checked the instructions. He noted that the hotel was holding two parcels for him, one to be asked for upon arrival, the other not until after the card game began.

"What's all that?" Vesper asked.

"Last minute details." He flipped over and found their cover stories. "Apparently we're very much in love."

"You usually leave it to porters to tell you this sort of thing?"

"Only when it's absolutely necessary." He found their passports. "I'm Mr. Arlington Beach, professional gambler, and you're Ms. Stephanie Broadchest—" Vesper instantly cut him off.

"I am _not_!" She grabbed for the papers, but Bond held them out of reach and smiled.

"You're gonna have to trust me on this, Ms. Broadchest." She calmed down and looked away from him. He couldn't tell, but it appeared that she was smiling. "It seems we're engaged to be married, hence the shared suite."

She looked over at him. Indeed, she was smiling. "Ah, but my family is strict Roman-Catholic, so for appearances sake, it'll be a _two-bedroom_ suite."

Bond put the papers back. "I do _hate_ it when religion comes between us."

"Religion, and a securely locked door."

"Don't worry," he said, looking away, "you're not my type."

"Smart?"

"Single."

111

Twenty minutes later, they arrived at the hotel. Bond led Vesper in and up to the reception desk, where an attractive blonde with cool blue eyes looked up at him. "Welcome, sir, how may I help you?" she asked.

_Oh, I could think of a few things, _Bond thought.

"James Bond, you'll find the reservation under 'Beach'."

She retrieved some paperwork, placed it in front of Bond, and then put a pen on top of the paper. "If you'll sign here, sir?"

He looked at Vesper. "You handle that. You represent the Treasury."

Vesper frowned, grabbed the pen, signed the paper, then threw the pen back down. He could see she wasn't happy, but for some reason, he smiled.

"Thank you and enjoy your stay," the receptionist said.

Bond watched Vesper walk away, then turned back to the receptionist. "Thank you, I will."

He walked over to the elevators, where Vesper was waiting. She didn't even look at him when she spoke. "This how MI6 does it? Half-assing by picking and creating cover names and then outright ignoring them?"

Bond sighed. "If Le Chiffre is that well-connected, cover names and aliases don't matter. He knows who I am, and he knows where the money comes from. Since he hasn't sent anybody to shoot us yet, that means he's decided to play me anyway. That tells me something about him."

She turned, her eyes basically drilling holes into his head. "You've told him something about yourself, as well. You told him you're a reckless, egotistical son of a bitch." The elevator door opened, and she stepped inside. "Take the next one, Mr. Beach," she said with disgust, "there isn't enough room for your and your ego."

Bond smiled again, as the doors closed. He pressed the button for the elevator next to hers and waited. The receptionist walked up to him with a parcel in hand. "This was left here for you, Mr. Bond."

"Thank you." Bond tore open the parcel and found a piece of paper and a set of keys. The paper was little more than a note with the words 'Lot 4, row 7, third from the right' written on it. The keys had the Aston Martin logo on them.

Five minutes later, Bond had located the parking lot, row and spot. In it sat a brand new Aston Martin DBS. He smiled, then hit the unlock button on the key device. He sat in the driver's seat, the took the piece of paper from off the dashboard.

'Bond, this is a little gift from me. As well as small incentive for you never to browse my email whilst using my stolen password again. Le Chiffre is in room 519, with his girlfriend Valenka and there's a weapon and miniaturized health equipment in the compartments on the passenger's side. Love, M'

Bond smiled again. "I love you, too, M." He reached over and found the button used to open the compartments. In one drawer, there was a small defibrillator module, two combi-pens and a syringe. The next drawer was empty. The third contained a P99 with suppressor attachment. He closed the compartment, then exited the vehicle. "Quite a nice toy."

111

The instructions told Bond that he was to meet his contact within Montenegro at a restaurant. Vesper tagged along to see the sights. From what Bond had gleaned from her over the past few hours, she had scarcely left London. She'd been to Venice, Algeria, Rome and spent a short weekend in a small town in the United States once, but London was her home, and any excursions away were interesting to her.

Bond connected her mentioning Algeria with the necklace she hadn't stopped wearing since he'd met her on the train.

A man was sitting alone at a corner table outside the restaurant. His hair was gray, as was his beard. He was wearing a beige suit and sunglasses. He stood as soon as he saw Bond and Vesper walk into the area.

"Nice to meet you. My name is Mathis, Rene Mathis." He took off his sunglasses and looked both Bond and Vesper over, then shook Bond's hand.

As the three of them sat down, Bond asked, "Does he know we've been watching him?" He said no names, as he knew Mathis should know who 'he' was. He didn't want to draw suspicion from any of Le Chiffre's men that may be watching them.

"No. Probably because there's no 'we'. Just 'me'." He smiled and laughed. "I'm sorry to say, if you get in trouble here, no cavalry will come over the next hill." He put his sunglasses back on. "Le Chiffre has spent his first few days here re-establishing old friendships and connections. Most recently and importantly, the chief of police. That's him, over my left shoulder." Bond looked over and saw another table. Seated at it was a balding man with glasses and what appeared to be his wife. "His men have received certain documents linking him to mafia activity around here, recently."

Almost as if on cue, sirens came to life, approaching. The cars stopped just outside the restaurant, and a legion of police officers walked up to the chief and showed him papers. Most likely, arrest papers.

Mathis smiled. "It's amazing what you can do with PhotoShop, these days."

"It certainly is," Bond said.

"You falsified documents?" Vesper asked.

"He wouldn't be out of the picture any other way." They all kept their mouths shut until after the police had carried the chief away from the restaurant. After that, Mathis picked up his drink and said, "I hate to say it, but it looks like the accountants are running MI6, these days." He made a glance at Vesper. "Not that I have anything against accountants. Some of them are lovely people. Just look at M. I'm told she was an accountant back in her day."

Bond smiled. "Well, she wasn't a simple accountant in her day."

"Know something about our esteemed leader, James?"

"I know a thing or two."

Mathis simply laughed.

111

Bond had spent a good portion of the day with Mathis, checking over everything. He was shown the room of the casino where the game would be played. Le Chiffre's hotel room (Bond had discovered Mathis was good at lock-picking, though Bond himself was not far off). The last place Bond asked to see was a dress shop.

"Something for Vesper, James?" Mathis asked.

"Of course."

"Something special?"

"Yes."

"Something for the bedroom after the poker game?"

Bond smiled. "Fun as that sounds, I'm going to have to say no."

"Well, don't let it stop you." He reached into his pockets. "You wouldn't happen to have a smoke, would you?" Bond retrieved his own pack and pulled one out. "H. Simmons of Burlington Arcade, huh?"

"Special made."

"Ah. Well, I have to go report. I'll see you at the game, James."

"Good afternoon, Mathis." Mathis nodded, then walked off.

111

Bond walked into Vesper's bathroom and hung the dress on the back of the door. Vesper herself was busy doing her make up at the mirror. "What's that?" she asked. "Something you expect me to wear?"

He slipped in the bathroom. "I need you looking fabulous so that when you walk down the stairs and kiss me, the other players will be paying more attention to your neckline than their cards."

"Isn't that cheating?"

"Cheating? No. As a matter of fact, card players often have their wives pay them a visit when they're down on their luck."

He saw her smile. "Fine, James. I left you a little surprise as well. You'll find it on your bed."

Bond left her bathroom, passed through her bedroom, then into his own. A bag, similar to a dry cleaning bag, was laying on his bed. He picked it up. On the tag was written 'Bond, J, Dinner Jacket'.

_A dinner jacket? _Bond questioned himself.

He returned to Vesper's room and held up the bag with the jacket inside. "I have a dinner jacket," he said to her. She was still doing her make up.

"Well," she said, "there are dinner jackets and then _dinner jackets_," she looked back at him and pointed at bag with her make up brush, "this is the latter."

"How did—" He cut himself off to find the right question. "It's tailored?"

"I sized you up the moment we met."

"Oh, you..." He shook his head.

Bond walked back into his room and put the jacket on. Vesper hadn't been off on his sizes at all. The woman was far better at remembering numbers than he'd suspected. He looked at himself in the mirror. The reflection just told him exactly what he already knew: the suit fit perfectly.

At the doorway, Vesper was smiling and giggling to herself.


	9. The Start of the Game

_**9 / The Start of the Game**_

Bond entered the poker room and looked around at all the men and women standing around, chatting, drinking and whatever else civilized mobsters chose to do before a poker game. Le Chiffre was busy speaking to Valenka by the closest table to the bar. Bond chose to sit at the bar and listen in, however the chatter was drowning out what little small talk Le Chiffre and Valenka were making.

Le Chiffre kissed Valenka, then sent her away. Before she left, he gave her a small pat on the bottom. Bond smiled. _A lover and a scoundrel. It's almost obvious._ When Le Chiffre turned and saw Bond, he smiled, then walked toward him. "Ah, Mr. Beach—or is that Bond, I keep getting you two confused."

Bond smiled. "Mr. Le Chiffre."

"How is MI6 these days? Promoting obvious security risks to such high positions, making a simple gambler a Double-oh. Yes, I read your file, Mr. Bond."

"Did you find it interesting?"

"It did last me a brief visit to my toilet."

"I'm delighted. Yours was rather effective toilet _paper_."

Le Chiffre laughed. "You interest me, Mr. Bond." As he walked past, he added, "But not enough."

Bond watched a somewhat large black man walk into the room. He looked somewhat out of place in his dinner jacket—almost as much as Bond felt in his own—and his mannerisms clearly suggested he was American. He was eying Bond as well. For some reason, he felt a kinship in those eyes.

A skinny man walked up to the table. "Good evening, gentlemen. Welcome to Casino Royale. The game is no-limit, hold 'em poker. Now, will the gentleman from the Swiss bank please get everything in order so that we may begin?"

A short, noticeably balding man walked in, clapped his hands and spoke in a most cheerful tone. "Ah, gentlemen, good evening. My name is Mr. Mendel, I'm with the Swiss bank. All of you have an account from which to transfer money to and from. If you please, we shall begin, so that the game may begin as quickly as possible." He picked up a clipboard and read off the first name. "Mister Bond?" Bond looked up as his name was called. Mendel smiled. "We proceed alphabetically, now if you'd please enter your account number?"

Bond walked up to Mendel and was handed a palm pilot. He keyed in the account number. It asked for a six digit password after that. A smile quickly appeared on his lips. 837737 was the number he punched in. Le Chiffre probably wouldn't figure it out: it was the same trick he'd used for ELLIPSIS.

The rest of the players were all keyed into the system, the game began.

111

The first hour of the game was anyone's. No one won or lost much. Out of his original ten million, Bond had only lost five hundred twenty thousand. Le Chiffre was doing considerably better, however, only having lost two thousand in total. The man knew exactly when to fold and when to raise. In the hour they'd been playing, he'd won at least half of Bond's five hundred twenty thousand.

Fukutuk, a large man who appeared to be out of Egypt, known to black ops circles as 'The Borderline', put in ten thousand. The American—a Mr. Leiter—checked that amount. Le Chiffre raised it by two hundred thousand. Bond checked, and the other players put their money in. The river contained the ace of spades, king of spades, jack of diamonds, ten of hearts and the ace of hearts.

Bond had the king of diamonds and the four of clubs. It wasn't a winning hand at all. The best he had was a pair. He folded silently, and let the rest of the players go at it. The combined total of the nine men playing was one million eight hundred ninety thousand. Everyone still playing turned their cards over, and Le Chiffre had the winning hand: the queen of clubs and the ten of clubs. That put Le Chiffre up over twelve million, out of his loss of one hundred one million from the Skyfleet near-disaster.

111

Two and a half hours into the game, Bond was feeling very thirsty. He was about to order a drink when he saw her. Vesper, wearing the dress he'd bought her, walked into the room. She was absolutely perfect in that dress. It clung to every curve she had, and accentuated them beautifully. She walked around the table to his side, then planted a kiss on his cheek. "Weren't you supposed to come in the other way?"

She smiled playfully. "Was I?" She then turned and walked around the table again to sit at one of the bar tables, next to Mathis.

Bond smiled, then turned back to the table. Several of the players were staring at Vesper, and had been since she came into view. Leiter in particular was grinning that American kind of grin. "You're a lucky man, Bond."

The waiter came over with Ms. Langreene's drink and set it down beside her. Bond called him over. "A dry martini."

"Yes sir," the waiter said, then he turned to head back to the bar.

"Wait," Bond said, causing him to stop. "Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet, shake it well until it's ice cold and then add a thin slice of lemon." His person creation, having thought it up seconds before. His mind had been playing cards and combining drinks the entire length of the game.

Fukutuk nodded. "I think I'll have that."

Yancy, a tall Russian asked for one as well.

The waiter passed Leiter, who reached for his collar and pulled him back. "Friend, I'll have one as well, leave the fruit."

Le Chiffre wasn't happy. "Are you all done? Can we play cards now?" He clearly wanted to win as much as possible before the break—ten minutes left.

"Someone's in a hurry," Leiter said.

They returned to the game. The river was currently a ten, a six, a five and a jack. Everyone was betting eight thousand. Le Chiffre was rubbing his temple with his index and middle fingers. Bond made a note of it. The fifth card in the river was turned over, revealing an ace. Le Chiffre stopped rubbing his temple and brightened up visibly. Clearly, he got what he wanted. "Cards, gentlemen?" the dealer asked. Bond flipped his two queens over. The others flipped their own cards. No one had much, but Bond's was currently the winning hand. Le Chiffre turned his cards over. A king and a queen. A full house. "Full house. Mr. Le Chiffre wins."

The skinny man returned. "All right, gentlemen, we've been playing for three hours, we will take a short, one hour break before we resume the game."

Bond stood up and walked over to the bar, where his drink was ready. Vesper and Mathis both followed him. Vesper looked very annoyed. "Well, you've shown an aptitude for spending Her Majesty's money, Mr. Bond."

"It was worth it," Bond took a sip, "to discover his tell."

"What's a tell?"

Mathis' face brightened. "He's got a tell? What is it?"

"He rubbed his temple continuously, that's what it was."

"Will one of you macho bastards answer me?" Vesper pleaded. "_What_ is a tell?"

"It's sort of a giveaway," Mathis explained, "card players do when they don't have a good play."

"But he had the best hand."

"Which he got on the last card," Bond explained, "the odds were two-to-one, winning was blind luck, and he knew it."

"This could be it, James," Mathis smiled, "we could have him."

"We'll see how this next part of the game goes. For all I know, I'm completely off about this tell." He took another drink of his martini. "That's not bad." He looked straight at Vesper. "I'll have to come up with a name for that."

111

The rest of the game that night was uneventful. Two of the players were down to a couple million apiece. Bond was up to thirteen million, Le Chiffre was up to seventeen million. The rest, Bond couldn't remember.

The skinny man returned once again. "Gentlemen, we'll now take another one hour break, then return for the last hour of the game."

Bond and the rest of the players stood up. He walked over to Vesper and took a drink of his fourth martini. He watched as Valenka and Le Chiffre kissed, then turned away and walked out of the room. Bond leaned toward Vesper, smiled, then playfully asked, "You wanna do _what_ to me?"

Vesper looked at him as if he were crazy. "I don't follow."

He whispered, "You just said you can't wait to get me into our room."

Bond and Vesper rushed out, up to the front desk. He asked for another parcel that had been left for him—by himself. He took it, then rushed Vesper into an elevator. When they were in the elevator, Bond pressed the button for the fifth floor. At the fourth floor, he hit the stop button. He handed the parcel to Vesper, who opened it. He stuck an earpiece into his left ear. Mathis had paid off.

During the game, Bond had Mathis place a bug in Le Chiffre's room. He didn't know where Mathis had it, but he could hear everything in the room. Le Chiffre was currently wooing Valenka.

"What are you going to do?" Vesper asked.

Bond dug his P99 and suppressor out of the parcel. "Take care of him."

"Aren't you supposed to beat him in the game?"

He checked the magazine and the barrel. "I'm not going to kill him. I'm going to make the offer. If he refuses, _then_ I'll kill him."

111

Le Chiffre kissed Valenka. Her naked form before him was absolutely exquisite. "I could do this all night," he said, "but then I'd never wake up in time to play later."

"_Please_ , dear," she moaned, "you're going to win anyway."

"Bond is good. He's _very_ good. If I'd known MI6 was going to send in someone with such skill, I'd have arranged for a different game."

A deep voice shook Le Chiffre to his core when the man he'd met in Uganda spoke. "If he has such skill, why did I not hire him to take care of my money?" He spun around and saw Obanno standing there, wearing a nice suit and holding a machete in one hand. Two of his soldiers were similarly dressed and stood behind him. "Did you think you could get away with it?"

"I was going to make you a very rich man. But, _Bond_ stopped me. There was nothing I could do about it!"

Obanno struck the wall with his machete. "I don't _care_ if you couldn't do anything about it, damn you! I hired you to take care of my money, and you spent it all trying to blow up a goddamn _plane_!" He walked up to their bed and sat down. He grabbed Le Chiffre's right arm by the wrist and held it up. "I would take your arm for this treachery, but you need it to play cards." He looked down at Valenka—naked, vulnerable Valenka—and grabbed her wrist. "Perhaps I need to show you the true _cost_ of betrayal."

Suddenly, the door burst open and someone came in, firing a silenced weapon. The mirror was hit, and both of Obanno's men sprang into action.


	10. Weeping Blood

_**10 / Weeping Blood**_

Bond recognized Le Chiffre, Valenka and Steven Obanno, but the two heavies were unknown to him. Nevertheless, he had to make sure Le Chiffre stayed alive to either accept MI6's deal or take a bullet from Bond's gun. Obanno's two side bags rushed at him, pushing him out the door. His gun fell to the floor with a thud, then Bond went into action himself. An uppercut sent the man on the left back against the wall.

The other man, however, wasn't ready for that. He slammed his own fist into Bond's stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Bond kicked him, sending him into his friend. Obanno came out swinging, his machete hitting nothing but air as Bond ducked left and right. The first man regained himself, and landed a punch on Bond's right cheek. Bond threw another punch, but the first man ducked out of the way and Bond's fist caught Obanno's nose.

Obanno didn't stand for that. He took another swing with the machete, but Bond dove out of the way. The blade dug into the wall, and Obanno had a little bit of trouble getting it out. Bond quickly grabbed his P99 and took a pot shot at the first man. It hit him in the shoulder, but didn't put him down. Obanno got his machete unstuck and threw it at Bond, who just barely dodged it. It hit the wall by the door to the staircase.

Bond ran first, taking another pot shot at one of Obanno's thugs. He hit the second man in the leg. Obanno kicked Bond in the stomach, knocking him through the door to the stairwell. His P99 once again flew from his hands and landed down on the ground floor. Vesper, who Bond had never seen enter the stairway, stood there in shock at what was happening. He waved at her to go down the stairs.

The first man was back, holding a fire extinguisher. He swung with it, but Bond ducked out of the way. It hit the stair railing, scaring Vesper even further down the stairs. Obanno had the machete again, but Bond kicked it out of his hand. It landed on the bottom floor, along with the P99. Bond grabbed the first man and pulled him over the railing. He landed on the bottom floor with a loud thud.

The second man kicked him in the stomach, knocking him against the railing. He kept his footing, however, and kicked him back. Obanno was on him now, a hard right and a hard left into Bond's face almost knocked him unconscious. He kept his wits about him, however, and sent the second man down the stairs.

It was just Bond and Obanno, now, until the second man regained consciousness. Bond head butted Obanno, then shoved him against the wall. He kneed him in the stomach three times before Obanno got the upper hand and pushed him down the stairs. He landed on the second man, waking him up. A quick elbow to the face put that problem back to sleep.

Obanno jumped on top of him, then proceeded with a series of punches that Bond barely felt due to the numbness of his face. He quickly grabbed Obanno's collar, and with every bit of strength he had left, threw him over the railing. The thud was softer than the first man's, but hopefully, Obanno was dead.

"Vesper," he said, hoarsely, "bring me my gun..."

She slowly walked up the stairs, holding the Walther like dead animal. She handed it to him, and he pressed the barrel to the second man's forehead. A single pull of the trigger and he was out of the equation. Vesper helped him to his feet and helped him down the stairs. "I can stand," he barely said. He stumbled out of her arms.

Something knocked him to the ground. Obanno was still alive. He spun Bond around, onto his back, and pressed the side of the machete to his neck. Bond's vision was blurring. Then, suddenly, Obanno fell over. His eyes held a dull, dead look. Bond looked around and saw Vesper, holding the P99 like a weapon instead of a small corpse. Smoke drifted from the barrel. "Thank you," Bond breathed out. He slowly stood up, walked over to Vesper and took the gun. "Go get Mathis... Tell him to take care of this..."

111

Bond splashed water on his face. It was difficult to see anything, but he managed a passable job at washing off the blood. He still had forty minutes before the game resumed, so he took his time cleaning himself. He scrubbed as hard as possible.

"_The Double Oh number means more than a fancy parking space at Regent's Park," _the instructor had said, that day at training, _"it means that you are authorized to kill whenever, where ever and who ever you need to to complete your mission."_

Bond looked at himself in the mirror. His blue eyes stared back at him.

"_I don't mean the exotic explosions the CIA are so fond of using, and I don't mean by being quieter than a dead mouse. There is no right way to kill. Sniper rifles, assault rifles, plastique, your bare hands—these and more are your tools of the trade. Death for Her Majesty's enemies comes from any one or more of these tools."_

He striped his shirt off and grabbed another. Thirty minutes left.

111

Bond sat down at his seat, across from Le Chiffre. The villain laughed. "You changed your shirt, Mr. Bond." He looked up from his money. "I do hope our little game isn't causing you to perspire."

Bond said, "I wouldn't worry until I start weeping blood."

111

The end of the night brought much needed rest for Bond. He tossed his jacket on the dresser next to the door. The hotel room was unnervingly quiet. _Where's Vesper?_ he wondered. He walked around the apartment and then he heard it: the shower. He walked into the washroom and saw her curled up in the shower, underneath cold water.

"What's this?" he said as he sat down next to her. She was shaking quite badly.

Her voice quivered. "It's like there's... like there's blood on my hands... and it... it won't... won't come off." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Please... help..."

Bond reached for her hand and started gently rubbing it. There wasn't really any blood there, it was all just in her mind, but he knew she needed some soothing. "Ah, yes. I see, now." He grabbed the soap from the dish above. "Let's see what we can do about that." He pulled her other hand close now, did the same. "Bollocks, this is terrible."

111

The next morning, Bond woke up next to Vesper, who still slept. She was like an angel, laying there. He stood up and grabbed the bathrobe from off of the dresser. He slipped it on and tied the sash around his waist. Mathis stood on the balcony overlooking the parking lot.

"How's the clean up going?" he asked, stepping out onto the balcony.

Mathis took a drag on his cigarette. "Oh, it went well."

"And the bodies?"

Mathis pointed down at a car, where a man was putting a suitcase in the trunk. "One of Le Chiffre's. A low-level." Two police officers walked up to him. They proceeded to question him, but he pushed them away, told them he had to get to a business meeting. Mathis pulled out his phone, dialed a number, then pressed talk. A phone rang inside the car—inside the _trunk—_and prompted the officers to have the man open it. The bodies of Obanno's men were stuffed there, and the two police officers raised their weapons at Le Chiffre's man. Mathis smiled. "Just because one's dead, doesn't mean one still can't be useful."

Bond smiled and patted Mathis on the shoulder. "Good work."

"How's our girl?"

Bond simply smiled again.


	11. Undercover Brothers

_**11 / Undercover Brothers**_

Bond felt more at ease that night, since he now knew Le Chiffre's tell. The first two hours of the game had gone by as normal as possible. When they started closing on the night's stopping point, Le Chiffre seemed to fold more, almost as if he was waiting for Bond to rack up a large amount of money.

Leiter watched him, almost like he was watching Bond's technique.

It was the last hand of the night, Bond had two hundred thousand, so did Le Chiffre. Bond's hand looked good—two kings, with a third up in the river. His only problem was aces, and two were unaccounted for. Fukutuk folded, as did the woman next to him. Leiter was the next one to fold, leaving only Bond and Le Chiffre.

Le Chiffre rubbed at his temple, the signature of his tell. Bond pushed all his chips forward. "All in," he said. In order to call, Le Chiffre also had to go all in, and Bond was ahead by two million dollars. There was sixty million in the pot. Le Chiffre called, and put his twelve million in alongside Bond's.

"Cards, gentlemen?" the dealer asked. Bond put his two other kings down. He smiled, but then Le Chiffre coughed out a dry laugh. He laid down the other two aces. "Four aces. Mr. Le Chiffre wins." Bond's eyes widened as Le Chiffre collected his winnings.

Bond stood up and walked away from the table. Le Chiffre was still smiling the last he saw the man. He never wanted to see that face again, especially not that smile.

111

Bond stood on the balcony that overlooked the dining room. Le Chiffre was having a triumphant dinner with an older man who had gray hair, a man in a business suit who had the kind of tan you got from South America, and Valenka. They were laughing, all happy.

The sound of high heels on the polished floor came from behind him. He turned and saw Vesper standing there, wrapping herself in her stole. "James?" she said, quietly.

He turned away from her and looked back down at the Le Chiffre and his group. "I'm going to need the other five million."

She stood right beside him, gazing at the sky. "No."

"No?"

"No, James. I'm sorry."

Outraged, Bond turned to her. "Sorry? _Sorry_?" He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Do you mind putting that in a sentence, like, 'Sorry, Le Chiffre's gonna win and continue funding terrorists with our country's money'? _That_ kind of sorry?"

She stared him right in the eyes. "You lost because of your _ego_. And now, that same ego can't take it. I won't help you lose even more."

"Well then you're an idiot."

"What?"

" I said you're a _bloody idiot!_" he shouted, causing others to turn their way. To them, he must have looked like he was going to strike her. He simply let her go and walked away.

111

Bond walked up to the bar and sat there, waiting for the bartender to finish up with the other customers. When he approached, Bond said, "Vodka martini."

"Shaken or stirred?" the bartender asked.

Bond looked him square in the eyes and said, "Do I look like I give a damn?"

As the bartender slid away to fix the drink, Bond caught sight of Le Chiffre and his friends, walking through the dining hall. He scowled at the look of pure bliss on Le Chiffre's face. Le Chiffre knew he was free, and that MI6 could do nothing about him or his friends now.

That anger spiked, especially when he saw the unattended knife on the table closest to him. He grabbed it, kept it hidden, then quickly tried to catch up to Le Chiffre. On his way, he passed Mathis. Quickly, he said, "Get the girl out," to Mathis' shocked face. Le Chiffre and his group descended a flight of stairs, and just as Bond was about to, Leiter stepped in front of him and stopped him.

"What're you doing with that?" he asked, glancing ever so quickly at the knife in Bond's hand.

"Who are you?"

" I figured I should introduce myself, seeing as we're related. Felix Leiter, a brother from Langley." Bond's eyes widened. So the CIA _was_ involved. The information packet had only hinted at it as a possibility. "I wouldn't do that, if I were you. You keep your head in the game, I think you have a chance to beat him."

"_Had_ . I lost."

"You're not buying in?"

Bond's lip twitched. "No."

Leiter carefully pulled the knife from Bond's hand. "Look, I'm almost out. I'm bleeding chips. I think you've got a shot, so I'll stake you. But, this is on one condition. You beat him, let the CIA bring him in."

"I'm not sure how my superiors will respond to this."

"My boss already talked it over with M, the game's on."

Bond was impressed. Clearly, his American counterpart had everything well in hand. _And here I am almost ready to kill Le Chiffre just because Vesper won't give me any money._ "Fine. What about the winnings?"

Leiter smiled. "Does it look like we need the money?"

111

Le Chiffre sorted out his chips and set them into the stacks they belonged. He wasn't paying much attention when someone placed a stack of five million dollars down across from him, where Bond had previously been sitting. When he looked up, Bond was standing there. "Shall we up the blinds?" the British agent asked.

He didn't know how Bond had done it, but he was back, though now his tell trick wouldn't work as it did before. That was unfortunate. "Why not?" he said to his only _real_ competition.


	12. The Deadly Martini

_**12 / The Deadly Martini**_

Bond had gotten a good deal of his money back by the end of the third night, and Le Chiffre had proven that he wasn't going to give up without a fight, but the game was still greatly in Bond's favor by the end of the night. Felix Leiter was still hanging on, but only by a couple hundred thousand dollars, and was folding nearly every hand. Other than those three, the only other card player at the table was Fukutuk, who was having nearly as much luck as Felix.

Bond took a drink of his latest martini, which was tasting funnier than it should. When looked down at his cards, the question of where the other two had come from briefly crossed his mind. After that brief second, the realization that his vision had doubled was obvious. As the world came back into focus for a second, he looked first at Le Chiffre, then at his own martini. It was obvious that he'd been poisoned.

"Excuse me," he said to the dealer.

"But, sir, you are the big blind. Bond took the money off the top of his stack, then folded.

He got up and nearly stumbled his way through the room. On his way out, he grabbed someone's glass and salt container. He stopped off at the restroom, which was glowing a very unnatural shade of white, thanks to whatever Le Chiffre had put in his drink. Using hands that were so numb, he'd never know they were there if he didn't see them, he hit the hot water and filled his stolen glass. Once it was full, he emptied the salt shaker directly into glass. He'd been taught in the mandatory health briefing, back in training, that it would flush out most of the poison.

The dizziness started to settle in, a sudden sense of vertigo followed. He couldn't tell what was up or what was down, and left and right wouldn't stop spinning around to allow him to make sense of it. He needed to get out to the car, to get to the health equipment. He was so close to dying that the sense of his life passing before his eyes almost came on.

Bond must have scared at least half a dozen people trying to shamble out to the DBS. At least three cars nearly hit him while he slowly crossed their path. Once he reached the car, he opened up the passenger's door and opened the compartment, activating his link to MI6 and pulling out the health equipment. Using a good deal of his little strength, he pressed 'Call' on the uplink.

111

M went through her briefing packets for the day as she usually did, when Tanner burst through her door. "Ma'am, it's Bond. He's been poisoned, and he's going into cardiac arrest." She pressed a button on her console and his medical stats, all recorded and processed by the tracking implant in his arm, appeared on her screen.

"_Have we figured out what it is?"_ one of the medical staff asked.

"_It's coming thorugh now. Ventricular fribulosis, digitalis,"_ another answered.

"_Bond, take the defibrilator out and attach the leads to your chest. When it's fully charged, press the red button,"_ the first directed. M felt helpless as one of her agents was dying, and she couldn't even give any medical assistance.

"_Wait, don't push the button!"_ the second shouted.

"_His heart's gonna stop!"_ the first responded.

"_He's only gonna have one charge before he passes out. Bond, take the blue combipen, mid-neck, into the vein. That'll counteract the digitalis."_

They couldn't hear over the uplink whether or not Bond had done as ordered, but something changed on the readout in front of M.

"_Now, push the red button, Bond."_

Nothing happened.

"_Bond, push the button!"_

Still nothing.

"_Push it now!"_

Again, nothing.

M shouted, "Push the goddamn button, Bond!"

Nothing.

Then a flatline.

111

Vesper got to the car just in time to watch Bond pass out in the seat. She grabbed the wire that had fallen out of the lead and reinserted it, then, after it charged, she pressed the red button on the defibrilator. Bond's eyes shot open, and he grasped for her. Sweat dripped down his face, which had tightened a great deal. Once he regained himself, his first question was, "Are you all right?"

"Am _I_ all right? You nearly died!" she shouted.

He pulled the leads from his chest and rebuttoned his shirt, then spent a few moments touching himself up. He was presentable again by the time he closed the door. "They'll give me hell for that," he said, though what he was referring to, she didn't know.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To win the game."

"What? You just nearly died! You're _not_ going back in there!"

He gave her a quick kiss on the lips. "I wouldn't dream of it." After that, he walked back toward the building, stumbling a little bit.

111

Felix Leiter was down to his last thousand, and had the worst hand anyone could have. Le Chiffre laid down two aces, after Fukutuk put down two kings. Why Felix had even stayed in, he didn't know. He just held out to some dumbass hope that a pair of deuces would be the high hand. After that, his thousand was gone.

Where the hell was Bond? He'd practically broken a table rushing out of the room in a hurry, and now he was missing. Felix was starting to regret Beam's decision to use Bond to get to Le Chiffre, but he couldn't back out of it now.

As Felix sat down at the bar and ordered one of Bond's fancy martinis, the elevator doors opened and the man himself stepped out. Bond walked over to him, grabbed the martini he'd just ordered, and took a very long drink. After the final gulp, Bond said, "Thank you, Felix. That was just what I needed."

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Defibrilating, why?"

As Bond walked away, Felix said aloud, to no one but himself, "What the hell does that even _mean_?"

111

Bond sat down at his seat, across from the visibly disturbed Le Chiffre. "Sorry about that," he said in a calm voice, "that last hand... Nearly killed me." Le Chiffre gave a very light chuckle, but allowed himself that smile that Bond would have loved to rip off with a pair of plyers.


	13. Winning & Losing

_**13 / Winning & Losing**_

Bond, Le Chiffre and Fukutuk were the last three remaining at the table. Their last hour was spent going back and forth between Bond winning and Le Chiffre winning, with Bond gaining the upper hand right near the end. Le Chiffre still had that confident glare, but his 'tell' had returned. Whether or not it was real this time, Bond couldn't figure out, but he seemed to be folding more and more.

On the very last hand, the anticipation was almost killing them. From a table off to the side, Bond heard Mathis tell Vesper, "This is probably the last hand. James will have to go all in to win, though."

Bond thought, _Yes, I will. And Le Chiffre knows it, too. I just need the right cards to show up over there. And Le Chiffre will almost guarantee that._ "Forty million, five hundred thousand dollars, all in," he said, pushing all of his chips to the forefront. Le Chiffre and Fukutuk obliged.

Mathis whispered to Vesper, "One hundred and fifty million dollars in the pot. Whoever wins this hand wins the game."

"Gentlemen, cards please," the dealer said. The river was an ace, two sixes a four and an eight. Fukutuk laid down an ace and a six. "Full house, aces full of sixes." Le Chiffre stared right at Bond and smiled. He then set down his cards, one on top of the other. The top card was an eight, then he slid it off to reveal an ace. "A higher full house, aces full of eights."

Bond did nothing for almost a full minute. He just stared down Le Chiffre, who was still smiling, and then he set his cards down. A five and a seven. The colour drained from Le Chiffre's face as his smile disappeared. "Five and seven of spades, a straight flush. Mr. Bond wins."

Le Chiffre wasted no time in walking away. He was furious. Bond smiled, then passed the dealer a five thousand dollar chip, as a tip. Felix looked to be on the verge of laughter, ready to burst, as it were. "He's all yours," Bond said as he passed him.

"Much appreciated, brother."

111

Le Chiffre couldn't believe it. He had Bond! He and Valenka strode through the hall to their room, where one of his contacts was supposed to meet him. When he entered the room, the lights were off. Valenka set her bag down on the chair, and was greeted by a handgun in the face. "Not such a good night, eh, Le Chiffre?"

Le Chiffre glared at the shadow in the chair. "You told me you were going to take care of Bond. You told me that the poison would take care of him, and he _lived_!"

The shadow stood. "Keep quiet, my friend. This will all be taken care of, shortly. Everything will be fine."

"And I should believe you?"

"You don't have a choice."

111

Bond sat across from Vesper, enjoying a very fine dinner, compliments of the casino. She'd put her necklace back on after leaving it off the whole of the poker game. He took another sip of his martini, then heard a beeping noise. Vesper reached into her purse and retrieved her cell phone. "Mathis says that the Americans have taken Le Chiffre."

"Where did Mathis go after the game?"

She shook her head. "I'm not sure. He said something about meeting a friend."

Bond filed that away. Something about Mathis' disappearance didn't seem right. He returned to his meal, deciding to worry about it later, when Vesper was safely locked away in the hotel room. If things got out of hand with Mathis, he didn't want her there.

He stared at Vesper for a few more moments, then looked away and took a drink. "You know, I think I'll call that a 'Vesper'."

She smiled. "Because of the bitter after taste?"

"Because once you've tasted it, that's all you want to drink." He tipped the glass toward her. She laughed, as did he. "I thought that was quite a good line."

"It was a _very_ good line," she said somewhat sarcastically.

"But you're laughing at it?"

"Not so much _it_ as _you_."

Bond smiled. "Well." A light laugh. "That's _fine_ then." After that, he kept up the smile, but decided to bring it up. "I've found out what that is. An Algerian love knot."

"Is it?" She touched it. "I thought it was just something pretty."

Bond shook his head. "No you didn't. Someone gave that to you. He's a very lucky man."

Her smile faded, and she lowered her eyes for a moment. "You can switch off so easily, can't you, James?" She looked back up at him. "It doesn't bother you? Killing those people?"

He took another bite of food. "Well, I wouldn't be very good at my job if I did."

"I don't believe you." She kept her glare straight. "You've got a choice, y'know. Just because you've done something doesn't mean you have to keep doing it."

He smiled and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Why is it people who can't take advice always insist on giving it?"

She smiled again, as well. "You think I can't take advice?"

He set down his fork and knife. "I think something is driving you. And I think I'll never find out what that is."

She looked down again, suddenly nervous. A second later, her cell phone chimed again. "It's Mathis, he needs me."

Bond nodded. "Give him my best." She smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek before turning her exquisite body and walking out of the room.

As he finished his meal, Bond finally put the pieces together: Le Chiffre's tell hadn't been obvious to any player or even observer but Bond himself, and he'd only told Vesper and Mathis. As Vesper's whereabouts had been accounted for during the entire game, he knew she hadn't told him. Mathis had disappeared for hours at a time, supposedly off to report.

Mathis was a double.

111

When Bond got outside, he dialed Vesper's number. There was no answer. He looked around, and saw a Chrysler speeding away. He knew it was Le Chiffre, or Kratt, or any of Le Chiffre's men. He sprinted across the street and deactivated the alarm on the DBS, quickly jumping in the driver's seat.

Within seconds, he was behind the Chrysler, on the open road. Ten or twelve twists and turns later, and he saw her: Vesper, tied up and lying in the middle of the road. Bond turned the wheel sharply, swerving the vehicle into a grassy area to the left of the road. It flipped two, three times, almost making Bond vomit each time. By the time it stopped, the DBS was upside down, and Bond had blood in his eyes.

He was numb. His left arm was useless. Neither of his legs moved, and he was short of breath. He barely felt it when two of Le Chiffre's grunts pulled him out of the car. They dumped him on the grass, just outside the car. Blurred though his vision was, he could see Le Chiffre as clearly as possible.

"A damsel in distress, and you had to chase after her." He took out an inhaler and sucked in some air. "Good friend of yours, Mathis. I'm afraid he's also _my_ friend Mathis." He looked at his men and pointed at Bond. "Get him in the car."

111

Bond was stripped, his hands bound and he was tossed into a wicker chair. He was on a ship, he knew, but that was all. He'd blacked out in the car on the way there, and had only been awoken by a few slaps to the face.

Le Chiffre took off his suit jacket and tossed it in the corner. Kratt handed him a rope with a large knot tied at one end. He tossed it around a few times, seeming to try it out. It was at this time that Bond realized that the seat of the chair was gone, and his genitals were exposed.

"I've never understood eleborate tortures." He pulled a chair in front of Bond. "When I worked for SMERSH in the eighties, I tortured many a British spy, like you. When I tortured, I got results, because all I did was cause more pressure than a man could endure. And do you know why? Because of the danger that if the subject didn't yield in time, there would be little left to identify him as a man." He leaned in close to Bond's ear. "Now, will you yield in time?"

Bond quivered. Le Chiffre's cool, calm voice chilled his spine.

Le Chiffre stood and started swinging the rope. One long swing and the knot at the end impacted Bond's testicles. "You thought that beating me in the game would end this?" Another long swing, another impact. "You _know_ we have Vesper, and she's in the same situation you are." Another impact. "She'll give me the account number, if she hasn't already, but I need you to give me the password."

Bond's genitals were numb, a bad sign if ever there was one. "All right," he breathed out. "All right, I'll tell you..." He shifted in the chair. "But first... Help me..." He looked straight at Le Chiffre. "I've got a little itch," he indicated his testicles, "down there."

Le Chiffre laughed, then hit him again.

"No! Not there!"

"What?"

"To the right! _To the right!_"

Le Chiffre laughed. Then another hit.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!"

Le Chiffre continued to laugh. "You _are_ a funny man, Mr. Bond."

"Again!"

One last hit.

Bond was cracking up. "Now everyone's gonna know you died _scratching my balls!_"

Le Chiffre's smile disappeared. "_I_ died?" He moved in closer to Bond. "_I died_?"

"Yeah, 'cause no matter what you do, I'm not gonna give you the password, which means your clients are gonna hunt you down and cut you into little pieces of _meat_ while you're still breathing... Because if you kill me, there'll be nowhere to hide..."

Le Chiffre grabbed Bond by the neck. "But, you are _so wrong!_ Because even after I've slaughtered you and your little girlfriend, your people would still welcome me with open arms! Because they need what I know!"

"The big picture," Bond whispered. He hadn't thought of it before. MI6 would still take Le Chiffre in, and if Mathis was involved, he'd be back at his old tricks in days. From another part of the ship, they heard Vesper scream.

"Give me the password, and at least I'll let her live." Bond said nothing. "Do it, Bond, and she might still be in one piece." Bond still said nothing. Le Chiffre let go of him and stood up straight. "You're _really_ not going to tell me, are you?"

Bond shook his head. "No." He coughed out a laugh, then spat blood on Le Chiffre's shoes.

Le Chiffre scowled, then kicked the chair onto its back. "Then I'll take from you what you seem not to value!" He pulled out a knife and almost dove straight for Bond's testicles.

The hatch swung open, and a Middle Eastern man, with solid black hair walked in, silenced handgun in drawn and pointed straight. Le Chiffre went rigid. "I'll get the money," he said, suddenly nervous, "tell them I'll get the money!"

The assassin said, "Money is not as important to our organization as knowing who to trust." With no other words, the assassin squeezed the trigger and put a bullet directly into the temple Le Chiffre rubbed when he was bluffing. Bond considered the irony for a moment, but then the assassin turned his attention his way. "I have no orders to kill you, but that does not mean I have to leave you." He picked up the knife Le Chiffre had dropped and cut Bond loose. If he wasn't so drained of energy, he'd have put up a fight. Using the knife, the assassin cut a Cyrillic symbol into the back of Bond's left hand. It read _spy_. "For future reference."

After a swift kick to Bond's chin, he was unconscious yet again.


	14. Recovery

_**14 / Recovery**_

M hadn't left her desk since the second Bond's implant stopped transmitting. Her secretary, Miss Moneypenny, or Tanner had brought her endless supplies of coffee or the occasional meal, should she actually require it. It was going on the eighth straight hour when Tanner walked in the room and said, "Ma'am, we've found him. Mathis called it in, he was on a ship docked in the Montenegro port."

She stood up, suddenly full of energy. "And the implant?"

"Seems it was pulled out."

"What about Le Chiffre?"

"Dead, as were all of his men on the ship."

She took that in, then asked, "What are the Americans asking?"

"We haven't told them yet, except for Leiter, who's trying to stall his people as long as possible."

She was out the door in a second. "And Bond? How is he?"

"He's been tortured. It seems, uh..."

"What? It seems _what_?"

"Well, ma'am, it seems he took some direct blows to his genitals. Possibly by a knotted rope of some kind."

"Christ... What sort of shape is he in?"

"He's alive. Quite a bit worse for wear, but otherwise in as good a condition for any man who's balls were nearly destroyed." Tanner seemed to register what he said, then added, "Sorry, ma'am. Not what I meant to say."

"The message was clear enough, Bill. Get Bond the best medical care we have, then get him debriefed. I want to know exactly what went on there." As an afterthought, she added, "What about Ms. Lynd?"

"She seems fine, ma'am. Not a scratch on her body."

"That seems odd. Any signs of rape?"

"None."

M was concerned, now.

111

Bond awoke in a haze of white. He heard a breathing aparatus, and he saw vague shapes who spoke French, but otherwise nothing made sense. As the drugs began to work, his vision cleared.

And Mathis stood behind a nurse on one side of the room.

"Not him... Not Mathis..."

The drugs did their work, and Bond was out like a light.

111

"Do you have any ideas?"

Bond awoke from his slumber. He was in an electric wheelchair, staring out at a beautiful lake, but he wasn't sure where he was. It probably wasn't the French-speaking nation he'd been in before, but he couldn't be sure. Mathis was standing by a stone railing, keeping people from going over the edge and providing a beautiful spot to sight-see from.

"What?" he asked, fully awake.

"Why they left the two of you alive?" Mathis turned around, his eyes covered by sunglasses.

"Where is she?" Bond asked.

"Sleeping." He walked over to a small table, upon which stood a glass of water and some kind of powder in a small cup. "And I'm supposed to get you to drink this." He poured the powder into the glass of water. "It's just odd. Killing everyone else, yet leaving the two of you alive?" He smiled. "Almost as if someone was trying to tell us something." Mathis turned to Bond again. "Get a look at the killer?"

"No," Bond lied.

"Shame." He handed Bond the glass. "Drink up." He took his sunglasses off and placed them in his pocket. "Anything else you remember? Anything that could help us?"

"Help _us_?" Bond asked. "Or help _you_?"

A look of surprise flashed over Mathis' face, and then he turned to see two men walking up behind him. In a hand, one of them held a small, hand-held taser. Mathis quickly turned back to Bond, as if to ask "Why?" and then the men reached him. A quick jolt to his neck, and Mathis was unconscious in a nanosecond. The men unceremoniously dragged him off.

Bond reflected on the situation. He was lucky after a few days when M stepped into his hospital room and asked who the double agent was. He relayed the information quickly, and Tanner discovered that Mathis had received large sums of laundered money into his various accounts, money that had been very carefully laundered by Le Chiffre's organization. Bond had asked M to hold off on arresting Mathis until he made the eventual move on Bond, and she'd reluctantly agreed.

111

The next day, Bond awoke to the most beautiful sight in the last two days: Vesper's smiling face. He smiled back, and said, "Hello." She greeted him back, and he asked, "You alright?"

"I can't resist waking you." She sighed, but kept her smile. "Every time I do, you look at me as if you haven't seen me in years. It makes me feel reborn."

"If you'd just been born," Bond said with a smile, "wouldn't you be naked?"

Her smile widened. "You have me there." She then leaned down to his ear and whispered softly, "And you can have me anywhere."

He felt as if he hadn't heard her right. "I can?" he whispered back.

"Yeah. Here, there, anywhere you like."

"Does this mean that you're... warming to me?"

"Yeah, that's how I would describe it."

"It's just that... not too long ago, I would describe your feelings towards me as, uh, I'm trying to think of a better word than _loathing_."

Her smile dimished. "I'm afraid I'm a complicated woman."

"That is something to be afraid of."

The sound of someone jogging toward them made her stand. Bond turned to his left and saw Mr. Mendel, with a briefcase, coming up to them. Vesper again smiled, however Bond was a bit disappointed that they weren't private any longer.

"Monsieur Mendel!" Vesper greeted him. "How are things in Switzerland?"

Mendel reached them, and placed the briefcase on the table beside Bond. "My apologies, I do not mean to rush, but one hundred and fifty million dollars is a large sum of money."

"It certainly is," Bond acknowledged. "You didn't bring any chocolates with you."

"I'm afraid not." Mendel laughed. Bond was serious. He looked at Vesper. "If you would type in the account number?" She typed in the seven digit number. He looked at Bond. "And now the password?"

Bond looked up at Vesper. "You can do that."

"I would if I knew what it was."

"V-E-S-P-E-R"

She looked at him with a strong hint of sadness in her delicate features, though Bond didn't see it at all. She then smiled and typed in the number.

Mendel closed up the briefcase. "The funds have been transferred. Sorry for disturbing you. _Auf Weidersehen_."

Bond said, "_Auf Weidersehen_, _Herr_ Mendel."

He looked over at Vesper, who had sat down in the seat beside him. Her make up was runny, like she'd just cried. "You know, James," she said in a quiet voice, "I just want you to know that if all that was left of you was your smile... and your little finger... you'd still be more of a man than anyone I've ever met."

He was taken aback by her words. This surprised him. Though he knew of his own feelings for her, he had assumed that her feelings for whoever gave her the Love Knot would be stronger than any she'd have for him. In response, he leaned toward her and said, "That's because you know what I can do with my little finger."

She smiled, and was on the verge of giggling. "I have no idea."

"But you're aching to find out."

She stared at him. A piercing stare. "You're not going to let me in there, are you? You've got your armor back on. That's that."

"I have no armor left." His voice breaking, he said, "You've stripped it from me. Whatever is left of me... whatever I am... I'm yours."

With little provocation, he took her inviting lips and they kissed.

111

A few weeks later, after Bond's final recovery, they found themselves under the bedsheets in Bond's hospital room. There, they kissed passionately as they undressed themselves. Once finished, it took little time before their kisses turned to love making. All the while, the rain pelted the building outside.

111

Two weeks after that, Bond and Vesper found themselves on a sunny beach in Italy. No one else was around for miles, except for the possible MI6 or CIA agent keeping tabs on them, but even they had probably wandered off to do something more important.

He came in from a quick swim and laid down beside her, her arms surrounding him.

"I suppose M won't miss me for a couple of days. She'll be too busy sweating Mathis."

Vesper went rigid. "Mathis?

"Remember I told you about Le Chiffre's tell?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, Mathis told Le Chiffre. That's how he wiped me out. Same goes for the implant. Can't say I'm too sorry about losing that."

"I can't believe it," she whispered.

"No, neither could I. I thought he had my back." He sighed. "But there you go. Lesson learned." _A hard lesson to learn. And not one I'd like to learn again._

"Does everyone have a tell?"

"Yes," he said, sitting up. "Everyone. Except you." For mere minutes, though they seemed like hours, neither Bond nor Vesper spoke. They just stared at one another. Then, finally, Bond said, "I wonder if that's why I love you."

As if it hadn't been obvious before, Vesper asked, "You love me?"

He nodded. "Enough to quit, and float around the world with you until one of has to find an honest job. But, I think that's gonna have to be you, because I have _no_ idea what an honest job is."

"You're serious?"

"Like you said: Do what I do for too long, and there won't be any soul left to salvage. I'm leaving with what little I have left. Is that enough for you?"

Her answer was a kiss, long and passionate. She laid down on her back, and Bond rolled on top of her. Somewhere, one of those MI6 look outs was probably reaching for a tissue.

111

The boat trip to Venice was slow, and wonderful. Vesper navigated, while Bond pulled out his laptop and began typing up his letter of resignation. He thought M would be thrilled to see it. Her loose cannon, leaving the Service and retiring to a life of ecstacy with an ex-treasurer. Yet, somehow, he pictured a somber look on her face.

Much like the one he felt himself wearing.

111

When they reached Venice, Vesper pulled out her camera phone and took pictures. Many, many years of her life, she'd dreamt of getting away from London and visiting Italy. Rome, Venice... her two favorite cities. There was much beauty to be found in Italy, ever since the Renessiance, when the country was its most beautiful.

As they neared the dock they chose to stop at, she caught sight of a man in a gray suit, wearing a hat. He seemed to be smiling, greeting the many sellers and fishermen throughout the docks.

And then he turned her way. And she saw that one of the lenses of his glasses was pitch black, much like an eye patch. And it was clear he was staring straight at her.

Then a small fisher's boat passed, and when she could see the dock again, the man was gone.


	15. The Double

_**15 / The Double**_

Bond wanted to stay beneath the covers of their bed forever. However, reality had to intrude eventually. "Y'know, James, one of us has to go get the money," Vesper said, playfully, "and one of us has to go buy the groceries."

He kissed her. "Yes, I know. But we're busy."

A cell phone rang. "That's mine," she said, getting out of the bed and slipping herself into a simple piece of red cloth that, when buttoned, became an exquisitely beautiful dress. "How much do you think we'll need to float around for a while?"

"I have enough."

She turned to face him and smiled. "But I want to pay for my half of our new life."

"Don't worry about it. You'll do more than earn your keep." He stood, still naked, and walked over to her. He kissed her neck, then noticed something. "You've stopped wearing it?" He was referring to her Love Knot. He hadn't noticed that she no longer wore it around her neck since they arrived in Venice.

"It was time." She held no warmth in her smile, this time. She picked up her cell phone as he walked around the other side of the bed to dress. "Ah, work. They still haven't gotten _my_ letter of resignation." Another smile. "I think I'll be devious." She pressed some buttons, a text message. After that, she dropped her phone on the dresser and said, "How about I go get the money, and you get the supplies?"

"Fine with me," he said.

They kissed the entire elevator trip down. When they reached the first floor, they bid each other goodbye and each went to do their separate jobs. Something about how Vesper said hers, however, seemed wrong to Bond.

111

When Bond returned to the hotel room, Vesper still hadn't returned. It was odd, but not unrealisticly so. Banks are quite often slow, especially in St. Mark's Square, where the Venice branch of the Swiss Bank was located. After setting the bags down, both his and her cell phone rang. He retrieved his from his pocket and picked hers up from the dresser. "Hello, M," he said, without any evidence to support his conclusion.

"_Hello, James,"_ M said, a sullen sound to her voice.

"Did you get my message?"

She sighed. _"We'll talk about that later. Right now, I have a very lovely man from the Treasury here asking me if you're ever going to deposit the winnings."_

His heart stopped. "That's a shame. I didn't think they'd miss it." He looked down at Vesper's phone. The text message was from a man named **gettler**.

"_So, you'll be doing that today?"_

"I'm on my way to the bank right now."

111

Bond strode through the streets of Venice, which were crowded with literally thousands of people. He dialed the number Mendel gave him during the game. "Mr. Mendel please? James Bond."

"_Hello?"_

"Mr. Mendel? I'm having a little trouble trying to access my account."

"_The funds were transferred to the account number your company gave us."_ He set the phone down for a moment. _"Ah, the funds are being withdrawn as we speak."_

"Where?"

"_The Venice branch, of course, St. Mark's Square."_

Bond swore under his breath. "Thank you." He then hung up.

111

The bank had been a dead end. Vesper had been and gone. He rooted through her recent texts but found nothing. He was completely out of leads... until he saw her simple red dress, going down a side alley. He kept pace seventy feet behind her, and followed her through side street after side street after bridge after bridge. He pulled his P99 from his belt and screwed on the suppressor.

Vesper was a double, too.

How could he have been so stupid? Le Chiffre's people had let them go, why? Because Vesper had promised them the money. It was so obvious, but he loved her, and thus willed it impossible. He remembered the lesson that Mathis' betrayal had taught him, one the wise Sun Tzu had written centuries before: Keep your enemies close, and your friends even closer.

Had he not been so damn blinded by that heartful smile, and those inviting lips, he would have never forgotten that difficult lesson.

She finally stopped in a square formed by five surrounding buildings and a stretch of water. Two shooters watched the clearing, keeping their silenced G36s trained on Vesper and Vesper alone, they hadn't seen him yet. He kept to the shadows, and watched from behind a corner. A man wearing a gray suit with a pair of unique glasses walked up to her. His left lens was pure black, like an eyepatch. He asked for the money, and she gave it to him.

Bond leaned out a little too far, and the one-eyed man grabbed Vesper by the throat and pulled out a pocket knife. "One more step and I'll kill her!"

Bond stepped out from his hiding spot and said, "Allow me." Vesper's look of fear was replaced with a look of utter sadness.

He was forced back into cover when one of the G36s started peppering the spot with bullets. Gettler—the one-eyed man—pulled Vesper into a building and retreated with his guards. Once the shooter with the rifle stopped to reload, Bond sprung out and fired one round. It hit the shooter directly above his left eye, killing him instantly.

He followed Gettler and Vesper into the building, and found that part of it was underwater, like many buildings in Venice. He was fired upon instantly, and he blind-fired back until he achieved some cover. The men weren't even bothering with silencers any more, and the noise of the gunfire was deafening. Bond unscrewed his own suppressor and then popped off a round into one of the air tank balloons keeping the building from sinking entirely. The whole building shuddered, and then one of the shooters fell from his firing spot and landed a foot and a half away from Bond. He finished him with a bullet in the head.

Bond ran up the stairs as quickly as possible in the shaking building. Gunfire chipped the cement all around him, but he returned fire as best he could. One couldn't easily line up a shot in a shaking building, and a semi-automatic weapon would be worthless as a spray-fire weapon. He picked his shots carefully, waiting until they reloaded to stop, then drawing as close a bead on their head as he could. Two or three of every five shots hit their target, while the rest either missed or hit some other part of the body.

When he reached Gettler, the man drew a handgun on him, but his shot missed when Bond shot another balloon. The building jerked to one side, sending Gettler to the floor and Bond's P99 into the water. Gettler was on him in seconds, sending hard rights and powerful lefts into Bond's stomach, then he countered with a knee to the groin. He pushed Gettler off of him, then dove for the nearest weapon: a nail gun. The water was rising quickly, and their floor of the building would soon be engulfed. When Gettler stood, after his momentary daze, Bond squeezed the trigger and sent a nine-inch nail directly into his left eye.

The water was pooling around his feet now. Bond looked everywhere for Vesper, but didn't see her. He finally found her inside an elevator, which was already submerged, but the gate wouldn't open. He dove into the water on the other side of the railing behind him and swam to the open elevator which was between floors. Vesper's lifeless body floated there, unable to reach the sea level. He swam to her, grabbed her body, and then swam up to the top.

Once he reached the surface, he pulled Vesper's body over and placed her carefully onto the nearest solid ground. He tried to do CPR as quickly as possible, but to no avail. Vesper Lynd was dead.

111

"_She had a boyfriend,"_ M said over the phone, once Bond had been rescued from the Venician police by Tanner, _"a French Algerian. This group, whoever they are, captured him and used him against her. She didn't need much reason to sell us out."_ She sighed, far more age in her voice than usual.

"She left her cell phone," he said, tossing it into her bag on the boat, "she must have realized I'd check it."

"_Well, she knew you were you. I suppose this clears Mathis."_

"No. It just proved that she's guilty, not that he's innocent. It could have been a double blind. Keep sweating him."

M said nothing for a full minute before quietly asking, _"You don't trust anyone, do you, James?"_

Bond considered that for a moment. He knew his answer, however, and said, "No."

"_Then you've learnt your lesson."_ He could hear a slight smile, near the end of her words. _"When you're ready, I need you come back. I'm sorry about your holiday."_

"It doesn't matter."

"_No, it does. Hasn't it crossed your mind, why you weren't killed that night on the ship? She made a deal, to save your life. She must have thought they'd let her live, but, perhaps she knew her fate, after all."_

"It doesn't matter," he repeated. "The job is done, and the bitch is dead." With that, he hung up. He wasn't in a particularly talky mood.

Vesper's cell phone rang. He retrieved it from her bag and found a text message. 'To James', it read. He opened it up and found a name and a phone number. The name was Mr. White.


	16. You Know My Name

_**16 / You Know My Name**_

SIX MONTHS LATER

Mr. White stopped the car at the gates of his palatial Lake Como estate. He stepped out of the car and took his briefcase—carrying all one hundred fifty million dollars that Bond had won at Casino Royale—and walked over to the railing that overlooked the massive lake. He felt as though he'd won. MI6 was a shambles, the CIA was going crazy trying to figure out what had happened to Le Chiffre, Greene's scheme was close to working.

And at the center of it all: James Bond had delivered them the money Le Chiffre had stolen from Obanno.

White allowed himself a smile. Quantum couldn't be taken down, now. As far as both MI6 and the CIA were concerned, all of the agents of the as-of-yet unnamed organization were either dead or in hiding. They'd never be able to flush them out. The world was theirs.

White set the briefcase down as his cell phone rang. He took it from his pocket and hit 'talk'. "Hello?"

"_Mr. White?" _an unknown voice said to him. White felt his eyes widen.

"Who is this?"

Pain shot through his left leg. His knees buckled, and he fell to the ground. The cobblestone wasn't exactly comfortable. He grabbed his leg as the pain surged through it. A small hole had opened up, just below his kneecap.

A bullet hole.

He needed to get to a phone—his cell had fallen to the ground and shattered. He crawled as fast as he could toward the front door of his home. Someone else walked in front of him, slowly, almost defiantly. Who was this man that shot him? One of Greene's? Or Haines'? He looked up at the blonde-haired man holding a silenced UMP-45 in one hand and a cell phone in the other. He simply smiled and looked down at White.

"The name's Bond. James Bond."


	17. Author's Note

_**Extra 1 / Author's Note**_

Originally, this fanfic was somewhat rougher. There were more mistakes. Since my first Bond fic was _GoldenEye 2010_, I wanted continuity, so I made changes to the film to fit what I'd already written.

Now I've gone and done it. I've edited _Casino Royale_ somewhat, again fitting continuity with _GoldenEye_, since I'm going to be redoing that closer to the Wii game.

If you want a PDF of the fanfic, email me.

_**Extra 2 / Acknowledgments**_

Ian Fleming. Creating Bond, giving the cast and crew of the film something to work with, thus giving _me_ something to work with.

The cast and crew of _Casino Royale_, for their voices, their images and their brilliant acting. No better a creative team could be assigned to that film.

Next comes the faithful readers of my fanfictions. If you people hadn't read and reviewed my fanfics, I'd have no reason to keep going other than to pass the damn time by.

Friends and family have to naturally go in here (why, I'm not sure).

_**Extra 3 / References, In-Jokes, Trivia and other bits of information**_

Originally, Bond's weapon of choice in this fanfic is the Walther PPK. Yes, it was a P99 in the movie, but _Quantum of Solace_ gave him a PPK for absolutely no reason (I figure the SIS just changed their sidearm some time between the two films, as obviously, some time had passed). I've changed all instances of the PPK into the P99, as I'm going to do with _Quantum of Solace_, as well. That way, when I get to _GoldenEye_ and _Blood Stone_, he'll have the P99 as he does in the games.

I want somebody to tell me how many references to Chris Cornell's "You Know My Name" there are as chapter titles (well, I mean I want somebody to actually catch them; I'll know them, but I want to see if somebody else can get them).

Chapter 1 is slightly short compared to some of the ones in _GoldenEye_. This is due to the relatively short amount of subject matter in the pre-title/credits sequence. All there is is Bond and Dryden's meeting and Bond and Fisher's fight. It was quite difficult for me to extend both of those sequences.

I liked the end of the scenes with Bond and Dryden. That was quite humourous (also quite humourous, I'm writing like a Brit when I'm American, the whole extra 'u's thing, of course, this is because Bond is a British invention, I'd do the same if I were writing Doctor Who or Hairless Pot-head [Read: Harry Potter], neither of which I shall write, however, as I'm not a fan of either).

Le Chiffre's henchman, the tall guy, is named Kratt. I'm only putting this here because I'm pretty sure nobody really knows that. I didn't even know it until I came to write this fanfic.

Another name I'm certain most people don't know is Valenka, Le Chiffre's blonde girlfriend. She's mentioned in chapter 2.

Unknown Person's Name Number 3: Mollaka. Did anyone with nothing but a passing interest in the character who does all the badass jumps and such know he had a name? Coincidentally, he's in chapter 3 (y'know, the whole Name Number 3 thing... aw forget it)

I tried to get all the jumps and things that Mollaka and Bond do from memory correct. I bet I didn't, though.

Originally, in this chapter, I had a "Bond, James Bond" but I got rid of it when I edited the story. The first use of the phrase is now where it should be: at the very end.

I made up the Prime Minister's name and his family status with Mollaka. I needed a reason a known bomb maker would travel to the Embassy of his country for aid when the Embassy would know his status in the criminal underground (seriously, that was kind of a plot hole in the movie). Making the Prime Minister his cousin (an unwanted one at that) gave it a little bit more credibility.

In the movie, M's assistant is a man known as Villers. I believe he's named after the first guy to play Bill Tanner in the film series (correction, first _credited_ guy to play Tanner in the films). I replaced him with Tanner because it really doesn't matter that much. Villers is never mentioned by name throughout the movie, and his presence is so insignificant that making him an entirely different person doesn't really affect anything. Besides, I just liked Tanner a bit more (especially Rory Kinnear, because he's great at a Tanner who seems really intimidated by his boss).

The scene between Bond and M in her apartment is one that I'd been looking forward to writing for a while. I loved that scene in the movie because I just loved the fact that M _really_ has no love for Bond. She's willing to have him killed just for saying her name. The Bond/M relationship in the Daniel Craig movies is one that I really loved simply because it's one of both friendship and antagonism. M's trying to stay politic and Bond's trying the blow the damn world up just to catch one person. I also just simply like the fact that Bond never really takes M seriously.

The dialogue between Bond and M in her apartment is taken (for the most part) directly from the film. It's location throughout the scene is probably not. I remembered the dialogue and the interactions, I just couldn't remember the place in the scene that it went. I hope I don't piss many people off doing it my way, I just couldn't remember.

AUR1C, the licence plate of the guy who hands Bond his car keys, thinking Bond's a valet, is a reference to Auric Goldfinger, the bad guy of the novel and film of the same name. I just put this in because that guy looked a lot like Goldfinger to me (and he was German, which Gert Frobe was).

Observant people will notice the Blu-ray players being used by the security guys at the Ocean View Hotel in the movie. I didn't make that up, they were Blu-ray players in the movie. I found that funny as all hell. Of course, it's because the movie was being co-produced by Sony, and they make Blu-ray players.

The card game between Bond and Dimitrios was fun to write. I just love Aston Martins (I'm not going to say anything, because I believe I already did in my _GoldenEye_ Author's Note).

Solange is mentioned as coming from the Italian quarter of New York. Solange herself (without the Dimitrios surname) comes from "007 in New York", the last short story to be added to the _Octopussy_ collection. Why they used her name for this movie, I don't know, but, hey, I didn't write the movie, just this fanfiction.

I noticed something that kinda aggrivates me, but at the same time doesn't. There is a scene with Le Chiffre playing cards with some big fatass guy and some woman who doesn't matter at all. The main focus of the scene is to show Le Chiffre's card playing abilities and his blood-eye. For some _really_ weird reason, I completely forgot about this scene until I wrote the scene with Le Chiffre and Dimitrios. Now, I have to make up a scene to introduce Le Chiffre's blood-eye, and I'm probably okay with the card skill, despite not having propperly introduced it. I figure 99.991% of all people who read this fanfic will have already seen the movie, so, there it is.

The in-flight movie was _Layer Cake_. Heh, heh. Staring Daniel Craig, if you didn't get the joke.

I created the scenes with Bond having to break into the museum through the back (otherwise known as chapter 5) so that I could inject a couple of scenes from the _Quantum of Solace_ game (basically, all of the shooting).

The Canadian who says 'bub' in chapter 5 is a little nod to Wolverine of Marvel Comics. Marvel published some Bond comics in the seventies (or the eighties, can't remember which), Marvel's Nick Fury character was created as a Bond stereotype, and I write Ultimate Marvel fanfiction, to be found on this website. Lots of little in-jokes there.

I changed Dimitrios' death to a gunshot mainly because I wanted Bond to shoot somebody there. I hope I don't piss too many people off with that.

Unknown Person's Name #4 (or is it 6? 7?) is Carlos: the Miami bomber. I would never have even guessed, because I didn't think the bastard _had_ a name. I just figured he was _The Miami Bomber_, just because he was insanely unimportant (he appears for no more than ten or twelve minutes on film). Was he Unknown Person #8? Maybe 9? Goddamn this is getting to me.

I don't remember the actual name of the Skyfleet plane from the film, so I just named it the 777. Yeah. It's an in-joke (Bond, in _You Only Live Twice_, the novel, is renumbered 7777 to continue his mission, and Nicholas Angel, the main character of _Hot Fuzz_, is Police Constable 777; this film costars Timothy Dalton as a bad guy, who was twice James Bond).

Does anybody but me find it odd that you need to turn a key to turn on the fire alarm? It's weird. What if some prick decides to steal the key? No fire alarm, and nobody gets notice of the fire. Of course, there are probably about two dozen other fire alarms in that part of the building alone, so my little rant here is probably meaningless.

Anybody else notice Bond lost sight of Carlos the Bomber quite a few times because of some crowd that got in his way? I didn't even notice until after I wrote the third or fourth time, and I started thinking "Who are these bastards? They _trying_ to make sure Bond can't catch this guy?"

I must say, I think chapter 6 has the least dialogue of any chapter, except maybe chapter 3. Yeah, just checked, chapter 3 has less. Wonder if that'll be beaten by any later chapters.

I liked Bond's love for the ground after the whole ordeal with the gas truck. I always figured that's what he was thinking when he jumped out in the movie.

For some odd reason, LoveBroadway (a reader of _Casino Royale_, after I must have made her feel kinda bad about not reading _GoldenEye_, I'm sorry, by the way), liked the fact that Bond got read his Miranda Rights at the airport. Granted, it's kinda funny (I mean, _I_ got a laugh at at it), but it _is_ just police procedure.

Chapter 7's title—The Girl from Treasury—is similar to the title of a chapter from Fleming's novel—The Girl from Headquarters—and I'm sure you can guess who it means.

I always imagined, as M says, that she wouldn't send Bond to Casino Royale if he wasn't the absolute best poker player in the Service. I really get the feeling she didn't even want to send him anyway, but knew it was the only way to stop Le Chiffre.

I must say, nice introduction for Vesper. Good, light-hearted humor.

There's a level in _Quantum of Solace_ the game that involves Bond having a shoot out and then a fist fight on the train with the guy he's supposed to be replacing at the poker game at Casino Royale. I meant to include this scene, but I figured it wouldn't fit right coming after a light-hearted scene. That scene in the game is just a couple of sentences (Vesper: I'm the money, Bond: Every penny of it, and then I think it ends, honestly). Truly, I'm debating on what all scenes from the game will be included in this fanfic. There's a big shoot out on the boat from the torture scene of the movie (one of the last of the _Casino Royale_ levels of the game), I may include that.

Oh, and anybody who doesn't know, the "I'm the money" "Every penny of it" is a reference to Moneypenny. She didn't appear in _Casino Royale_ or _Quantum of Solace_ (neither did Q, but he got no joke, for some reason) and the writers of the movie just wanted to give her a joking mention. Hopefully, people don't think I made this exchange up.

I like the note M leaves Bond in the DBS. Y'see, if I were to screw around in _my_ boss' account, I'd check their email and find shit. Of course, Bond has no intention of blackmailing M, but what subordinate doesn't want dope on their boss?

Rene Mathis is introduced in chapter 8. I love the Mathis character in _Casino Royale_ and _Quantum of Solace_. What shocked me the most about his death was the fact that I was shocked about his death. I'd grown to like this character so much (especially in _Quantum of Solace_) that his death actually got to me. I hope I'm not pissing too many people off by saying that I'm gonna keep him alive in my fanfic novelization of _Quantum_. I want him to appear in the third book (where he introduces Bond to Valentin Zukovsky, connecting the stories). Please, don't send me angry hate emails about it.

H. Simmons of Burlington Arcade (who I can only assume is a top-flight cigarette company in London) first appeared as Bond's cigarette supplier in _For Special Services_, by John Gardner. From what I hear, they were one of the few elements of the Gardner series to return for Benson's tenure as Bond writer. I have absolutely _no_ idea why I used them, however.

Oh, after a hiatus of several months, here comes more _Casino Royale_. And a damn good thing, too. According to my properties box, I created chapter 8 in November of 2010, and chapter 9 in May of 2011. Goddamn, that's a long ways away.

Anyway, onto chapter 9's trivia: Ah, Felix! Felix shows up in a minor role in this chapter, to be introduced later.

Bond and Le Chiffre's banter at the beginning was a funny one to write (as all banter in this story seems to be, seriously, I don't seem to take this as seriously as I should).

Oh yeah, there's that drink I love to list the ingridients to.

Y'know, that's gotta be one hell of a _long_ poker game if there needs to be two breaks in one night. I'm not sure I could park my ass in a chair just to play cards for so long. Bet I'd find it boring. Although, it's only this way because I went off of memory for a little while, and my memory was incorrect (I discovered this as I watched the film again).

The fight between Bond, Obanno and his henchmen (singular in the movie) was extended. It's also a little bit more brutal. Bond takes far more damage than he did in the film.

I don't know why I added some kind of drill instructor memory for Bond during the scene where he's cleaning himself up after the fight. I just wanted some dialogue there, even if it was a flashback.

Chapter 11's title—Undercover Brothers—is, of course, a reference to the stupid movie _Undercover Brother_. Sad thing: I paid money to buy that movie on DVD, and couldn't even return it.

Bitch people, I don't care. Yes, I got the cards wrong when Le Chiffre beat Bond at the halfway point in the game, but I hadn't watched the movie in a while.

Chapter 12's title—The Deadly Martini—was based on a chapter from the novel _Casino Royale_, called "The Deadly Tube".

Is it just me, or is there a little more suspense in this chapter when Bond's getting his medical instructions? It feels like it.

I like the humourous 'taking the martini' bit with Bond and Felix. I just think Bond would have done it.

The scene with Bond and Vesper talking after the game was the first one where I actually watched the scene from the film and wrote the dialogue down instead of just going off memory. I'm glad I did, too. I forgot most of the scene.

Y'know, I can write nudity great most of the time, but for some reason when I came to the torture scene, it was very awkward.

I added in Bond getting the Cyrillic for "spy" on his hand for misdirection. At this point, Quantum is trying to trick Bond into thinking the Russians are behind it. That, and why not connect this fanfic to the source material's source material? This is just a bit of mentioning here, and it won't be touched upon in the story itself.

Chapter 14 was an entire chapter that, except for the beginning with M and Tanner, I practically transcribed the whole thing while watching the movie. The dialogue in this scene, much like at the dinner scene, is very specific, and not just something to pick and choose from memory as I did in other scenes (and I think I missed a scene earlier on in the film when Vesper talks about Bond's 'armor').

One problem I discovered after submitting chapter 13 was that I'd forgotten all about Bond's implant being taken out of him when Le Chiffre captures him. I think I got away with it by making him pretty much unconscious in that scene, but what I did was a quick fix, by adding that scene with M and Tanner. I'd had this problem before, because when Bond meets Vesper, way back on the train, I don't believe I mentioned the Algerian Love Knot, so I just popped in a bit of Bond mentioning how she'd worn it in their first meeting, taken it off during the poker game (which, in the film, she didn't), and puts it back on after Bond's won. I have to improve my continuity better.

In chapter 15, Bond kills Gettler with a nine-inch nail. Yes, in fact, I was thinking of the Nine-Inch Nails when I wrote that, but that's all.

Chapter 16 ends the story with my final title song/chapter name joke. _You Know My Name_ is the offical title song of _Casino Royale_, and since it's also the scene in the film where Bond says "The name's Bond. James Bond." I felt it was fitting to name the chapter this as well.

Well, from August 8 of 2010 to December 24 of 2011, this has the longest writing time of any of my Bond fics (but, please let the record show: not the longest time of _all_ my fics, which is currently held by _The Unending Nightmare_ and may be trumped by _Red Planet_). I'm sure _Quantum of Solace_ will take longer (I'm a slow writer).

Speaking of _Quantum of Solace_, here's chapter 1! I'll repost it as it's own story once I'm fully into the writing process on that one. I hope you enjoy.


	18. A Short Drive

_**1 / A Short Drive**_

The countryside between Lake Como and Siena, Italy was quite beautiful. Many hills, many roads, many tunnels. The man driving the gray Aston Martin DBS V-12 wished that he had the time to admire the beautiful country of Italy, but the bullets bouncing off of his bulletproof rear windshield were telling him that time was of the essence.

He shifted into the correct gear and sped around a corner into a tunnel, where a road crew were doing construction on one side. The men behind him, all driving black Land Rovers, fell into an almost perfect line behind him, each with a man hanging out a window waiting for their turn to shoot at the DBS.

The man again shifted, doing quick swerves to avoid not only the road crews, but other drivers as well. The men in the Land Rovers struggled to keep up, but most of them did. One hit a bulldozer as the group exited the tunnel, but the other two remained.

The man did a quick turn to avoid another bulldozer, but didn't miss it entirely, losing his driver's side door. A Land Rover pushed past a vehicle that had pulled over to the side due to a failure of some kind. The driver of the now-destroyed vehicle shouted, then called the police on his cell phone.

On a stretch of empty road, the man leaned out of the DB5 and fired off a few rounds from his silenced UMP-45, hitting the tires of one of the Land Rovers, as well as sending a good grouping of rounds into the engine, somehow causing the vehicle to spin up from the rear, then onto its roof. The man smiled.

The final Land Rover was difficult to dispatch, as the driver was excellent at swerving and missing any obstacles. Luckily for the man in the DB5, the police finally arrived from the earlier driver's cell phone call, and as the DB5 passed them, they screeched to a stop, and the driver of the Land Rover didn't have the chance to stop or slow down, and thus crashed into five police cars, killing only the driver of the Land Rover and his accompanying shooter.

When the DB5 pulled into the safehouse garage in Siena, Italy, the man straightened his tie, tossed his UMP in the passenger's seat and walked around to the trunk. He opened it and the captive inside, Mr. White, looked up in shock.

James Bond simply said, "It's time to get out."


End file.
